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HAMLET 
AND  THE  SCOTTISH  SUCCESSION 


HAMLET 

AND 

THE  SCOTTISH   SUCCESSION 

BEING  AN  EXAMINATION  OF  THE  RELATIONS  OF 
THE  PLAY  OF   HAMLET  TO  THE  SCOTTISH 
SUCCESSION  AND  THE  ESSEX  CONSPIRACY 

BY 

LILIAN  WINSTANLEY 


THE   FOLCROFT  PRESS,   INC. 
FOLCROFT,  PA. 


First  Published  1921 
Reprinted  1969 


yV55 


7^-' 


Ki 


A'  I  A 


PREFACE 

I  WISH  to  thank  my  historical  colleagues  at  Aberystwyth 
for  the  sympathy  and  help  they  have  given  me  during 
the  writing  of  the  following  essay  :  Mr  Sidney  Herbert 
for  recommending  books,  Dr  E.  A.  Lewis  for  his  invaluable 
assistance  in  directing  me  to  State  Papers  and  many  other 
contemporary  documents,  and  especially  to  Professor 
Stanley  Roberts  for  reading  my  proofs,  for  giving  me 
much  information  on  Ehzabethan  history,  and  for  his 
unfailing  kindness  in  discussion  and  criticism. 


Lilian  Winstanley 


The  University  College  of  Wales, 
Aberystwyth,  November  1920 


vu 


CONTENTS 


Introduction  ..... 

CHAP. 

I.  RicH.^RD  II.  AND  Hamlet 

II.  Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder 

HI.  James  I.  and  Hamlet  .         .         .         .  . 

IV.  "  The  Play  Within  the  Play"  and  Hamlet's 

Voyage  to  England 
V.  Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh 

VI..  Ophelia  _, 

VII.  Hamlet  and  Essex 
VIII.  Conclusion  . 
Appendices 
Index    .... 


FACE 
I 

33 

48 

72 

102 
109 
129 

139 
165 
183 
187 


ix 


HAMLET  AND  THE 
SCOTTISH  SUCCESSION 

(Being  an  Examination  of  the  Relations  of  the  Play 

OF  Hamlet  to  the  Scottish  Succession  and  the 

Essex  Conspiracy) 

INTRODUCTION 

It  is  the  purpose  of  the  following  essay  to  study  the 
play  of  Hamlet  from  a  somewhat  fresh  point  of  view  by 
endeavouring  to  show  its  relation  or  possible  relation  to 
contemporary  history. 

My  attempt  throughout  has  been  to  regard  the  play  as 
it  naturally  would  be  regarded  by  an  Elizabethan  audience, 
for  it  seems  to  me  that  this  particular  angle  of  vision  has 
hitherto  been  too  little  considered  in  our  current  criticism. 
We  have  not  sufficiently  realised,  I  think,  that  to  consider 
the  Elizabethan  audience  is  our  least  indirect  method  of 
approach  to  Shakespeare  himself,  A  dramatic  poet 
cannot  possibly  ignore  the  mentality  of  his  audience  ; 
an  epic  poet  may,  if  he  pleases,  WTite,  as  we  know  Milton 
actually  did  write,  for  posterity  and  for  an  audience  "  fit 
though  few  "  ;  but  a  dramatic  poet  who  does  genuinely 
produce  his  plays  before  a  popular  audience  cannot 
possibly  do  anything  of  the  kind.  The  mentality  of  his 
audience  provides  him  with  at  least  half  of  his  material. 
It  is  through   that   mentaUty  that  his    plays  must  be 

A  I 


2       Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

reviewed  and  considered ;  it  is  to  that  mentality  they  must 
all  appeal.  If  the  dramatic  poet  wishes  to  discuss  problems 
his  task  is  immensely  faciUtated  by  selecting  problems 
in  which  his  audience  are  already  interested ;  if  he  wishes 
to  awaken  feehngs  of  terror  and  pathos,  as  every  true 
dramatist  must,  his  task  is  immensely  facilitated  if  he 
appeals  to  associations  already  existing  in  their  minds. 

The  mentality  of  his  audience  everjrwhere  shapes  and 
conditions  his  work  as  certainly  as  the  work  of  a  sculptor 
is  shaped  by  the  architecture  and  purpose  of  the  building 
in  which  it  stands.  The  sculpture  of  the  Parthenon  is 
not  more  certainly  adapted  to  the  purpose  of  the  Par- 
thenon than  are  the  plays  of  a  true  dramatist  to  the 
mentality  of  his  audience. 

Now,  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare,  the  mentality  of  the 
audience  is  doubly  important,  because  there  is  no  direct 
method  of  approach.  Shakespeare  himself  has  left  no 
letters  or  prefaces  which  explain  his  work  ;  his  contem- 
poraries have  left  no  criticisms  ;  the  notices  we  possess 
of  his  plays  are  extremely  meagre  and  most  of  them 
limited,  like  those  of  Forman,  to  a  mere  reference  to  the 
subject  of  the  play. 

Neither  can  we  judge  Shakespeare  completely  by  the 
effect  produced  on  our  own  minds;  we,  after  all,  are  a 
remote  posterity,  and  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that 
he  did  not  write  for  us.  We  ourselves  may  be  quite 
adequate  judges  of  the  purely  aesthetic  effect  of  the  plays  ; 
but,  in  order  to  understand  them  fully,  it  is  surely  necessary 
to  ask  what  their  effect  upon  a  contemporary  audience 
would  be  likely  to  be  and  what  such  an  audience  would 
probably  think  they  meant. 


Introduction  3 

The  moment  we  attempt  to  place  ourselves  at  the  same 
angle  of  vision  as  an  Ehzabethan  audience  we  see  many 
things  in  a  different  light ;  many  problems  solve  them- 
selves quite  simply  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  many  are 
suggested  which  do  not  occur  to  the  modern  reader,  and 
which  nevertheless  surely  demand  solution  if  we  are  to 
comprehend  Shakespeare  fully  and  completely. 

I  propose  to  give  illustrations  of  both  types  of  pro- 
blems, of  those  which  solve  themselves  and  of  those  which 
suggest  themselves. 

Let  us  enquire,  for  instance,  why  Shakespeare  selected 
the  subject  of  Macbeth  ?  One  reason  is  obvious.  A 
Scottish  king  had  recently  succeeded  to  the  throne  and 
the  choice  of  a  Scottish  theme  was,  in  itself,  a  compli- 
ment to  him.  Then,  again,  Banquo  was  the  ancestor  of 
the  Stuarts,  and  the  subject  of  the  play  enables  Shake- 
speare to  depict  Banquo  in  a  favourable  light. 

But  is  there  an}'  reason  for  the  selection  of  Macbeth 
himself  as  a  hero  ? 

There  is,  I  think,  an  exceedingl}'  good  one  ;  but  it  only 
becomes  evident  after  a  careful  study  of  the  ideas  of  the 
epoch. 

Macbeth  was  the  person  who  fulfilled  the  Merlin  pro- 
phecies and,  by  so  doing,  brought  about  the  foundation 
of  the  British  Empire.  The  Merlin  prophecies,  as  inter- 
preted by  the  so-called  Tudor  bards,  were  to  the  effect 
that  the  ancient  British  line  should  once  again  succeed 
to  the  throne  of  England  and  that,  when  it  did  so  succeed, 
the  different  British  kingdoms  should  be  united  under 
one  crown  and  the  ancient  Arthurian  empire  restored. 
Professor   Gwyim    J(.>mi;s   ;\S'-.iu\;s    me    that    these    Merlin 


4       Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

prophecies  had  an  important  pohtical  bearing  in  sixteenth- 
century'  Wales ;  they  certainly  had  in  England,  and  they 
were  celebrated  by  many  poets,  notably  Spenser,  Drayton, 
and  Ben  Jonson. 

Drayton's  lines  happen  to  be  the  most  apposite  for  my 
purpose,  so  I  quote  them  : 

"  the  ancient  British  race 
Shall  come  again  to  sit  upon  the  sovereign  place.  .  .  . 
By  Tudor,  with  fair  winds  from  little  Britaine  driven, 
To  whom  the  goodly  bay  of  Milford  shall  be  given  ; 
As  thy  wise  prophets,  Wales,  foretold  his  wish'd  arrive 
And  how  Lewellin's  line  in  him  should  doubly  thrive. 
For  from  his  issue  sent  to  Albany  before, 
Wliere  his  neglected  blood  his  virtue  did  restore 
He  first  unto  himself  in  fair  succession  gained 
The  Stewards  nobler  name  ;  and  afterwards  attained 
The  royal  Scottish  wreath,  upholding  it  in  state. 
This  stem,  to  Tudors  joined  .  .  . 
Suppressing  every  Plant,  shall  spread  itself  so  wide 
As  in  his  arms  shall  clip  the  Isle  on  every  side. 
By  whom  three  severed  realms  in  one  shall  firmly  stand 
As  Britain -founding  Brute  first  monarchised  the  Land."  ' 

Selden's  note  on  the  above  passage  is  :  "  About  our 
Confessor's  tirnc,  Macbeth,  King  of  Scotland  {moved 
by  prcdicliou,  affirming  that  his  line  extinct,  the  posterity 
of  Bampiho,  a  noble  thane  of  T.oqhnabie,  should  attain 
and  conliaue  the  Scottish  reign)  and,  jealous  of  others, 
hoped-for  greatness,  murdered  Baiujuho,  but  missed 
his  design  ;  for  one  of  the  same  posit  rity,  Fleanch  son 
to  Bauqubo,  [hivily  fled  to  GrylTitli  ,ip  I.lovvelin  (Drayton 
Polyolhion,  "-zeng  V.),  then  Prince  nf  \\'a]es,  and  was  there 
\i,Mny  (vci;ivod.     To  him  and  Nesta,  tin/  '"'lince's  daughter, 

'  Dn\)  fon,  Polyolhion,  Song  V. 


Introduction  5 

was  issue  one  Walter.  .  .  .  The  rest  alludes  to  that : 
Cambria  shall  be  glad,  Cornwall  shall  flourish,  and  the 
Isle  shall  be  styled  \vith  Brute's  name  and  the  name  of 
strangers  shall  perish  :   as  it  is  in  Merlin's  prophecies." 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  see  what  Macbeth  really 
meant  to  the  Elizabethans  :  he  was  the  man  who  ful- 
filled the  Merhn  prophecies,  and  he  fulfilled  them  by  the 
very  fact  that  he  tried  to  evade  them  ;  when  Fleance, 
the  son  of  the  murdered  Banquho,  fled  to  Wales  he  inter- 
married with  the  ancient  British  line  and  thus  brought 
its  blood  to  the  throne  of  Scotland. 

Now  the  Elizabethans  always  laid  immense  stress  on 
this  genealogy  for  their  monarchs ;  anyone  who  will 
refer  to  Camden's  genealogy  of  the  Tudors  will  see  that 
he  derives  their  line  from  Brutus  the  Trojan,  and  the 
Stuarts,  as  we  have  just  seen  from  Drayton  and  Selden, 
were  similarly  derived  through  Fleance  the  son  of 
Banquho. 

Now  an  Elizabethan  audience  would  surely  see  in 
Macbeth  the  same  theme  as  in  the  lines  quoted  from 
Drayton,  We  have  the  enormous  stress  laid  on  prophecy 
throughout  the  play,  we  have  the  question  of  the  succession 
prominent  in  i\Iacbeth's  mind,  we  have  the  murder  of 
Banquho  and  the  flight  of  Fleance,  we  have  the  future 
shown  to  Macbeth  with  the  progeny  of  this  Fleance 
succeeding,  and  we  have  the  vision  of  the  unity  of  the 
British  Isles  in  the  procession  of  the  kings  who  "  two- 
fold balls  aiul  treble-sceptres  carry "  and  whose  lines 
"  stretch  out  to  (he  crack  of  doom." 

Machtih  has,  tl\(  n  tht^  same  theme  as  the  r.issage 
i.l;(:.<ly   q' *:»tcd    fi(,MO    Drayton;    what    they    both   deal 


6       Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

with  is  the  founding  or,  as  they  would  have  put  it,  the 
restoration  of  the  British  Empire. 

The  main  conception  is  exactly  similar  to  those  which 
occur  in  Greek  tragedy,  where  the  very  attempt  to  evade 
prophecy  brings  about  its  fulfilment,  and  the  theme  is  as 
intimately  interwoven  with  British  history  in  the  widest 
and  truest  sense  of  the  term  as  any  theme  selected  by 
a  Greek  dramatist  was  interwoven  with  Greek  history. 
It  is  difficult  to  imagine  any  subject  more  appropriate 
to  render  before  James  I.  ;  he  was  the  destined  restorer 
of  the  ancient  Arthurian  empire,  the  man  destined  to 
unite  England,  Scotland,  Wales  and  Ireland  all  under 
the  same  crown,  as  long  ago  prophesied  by  Merhn, 
and  the  play  shows  how  the  effort  to  avert  the  succes- 
sion from  the  line  of  Banquho  led  precisely  to  its 
fulfilment.^ 

Or  let  me  choose  another  illustration.  Suppose  we  ask 
whether  Shakespeare's  Denmark,  as  depicted  in  Hamlet, 
is  a  real  country  or  not  and,  if  real,  what  countr}^ !  Every- 
one will  admit  that  Denmark  makes  a  singularly  real  and 
vivid  impression  upon  the  mind  ;  it  is  as  real,  in  the 
dramatic  sense,  as  any  country  we  have  ever  known  or 
heard  of.  But  did  Shakespeare  invent  it  as  a  background 
for  his  melancholy  prince,  or  was  he  describing  any 
country  he  knew  ?  It  certainly  is  not  the  Denmark  of 
his  source  ;  the  Denmark  of  Saxo  Grammaticus  is  an 
almost  entirely  barbaric  country,  savage  and  primitive 
to  a  degree  ;  even  the  Hamlet,  the  hero  of  the  primitive 
story,  cuts  an  enemy's  body  to  pieces  and  boils  it  and 
outrages  a  woman,  and  yet  he  is  the  best  person  in 
*  See  note  A ,  Appendix. 


Introduction  7 

the  whole  piece.  Is  Shakespeare's  Denmark,  then,  an 
imaginary  region  created  by  himself  ? 

Let  us  ask  what  an  Elizabethan  audience  would  have 
made  of  it.  I  do  not  think  there  need  be  five  minutes' 
delay  about  the  answer  to  this  question.  An  Elizabethan 
audience  would  almost  certainly  have  thought  Denmark 
a  real  country,  and  they  would  have  believed  it  to  be 
contemporary  Scotland. 

The  peculiar  combination  of  circumstances  and  the 
pecuhar  type  of  manners  depicted  in  Shakespeare's 
Denmark  are,  in  the  highest  degree,  distinctive  and 
strange ;  but  they  can  every  one  be  paralleled  in  the  case 
of  sixteenth-century  Scotland. 

Shakespeare's  Denmark,  to  begin  with,  is  a  country 
where  feudal  anarchy  reigns  ;  there  is  no  settled  law  and 
order  :  the  crown  is  seized  by  a  usurper  and  almost  every 
principal  personage — the  elder  Hamlet,  the  younger 
Hamlet,  Polonius,  Claudius,  the  Queen — ends  either  by 
a  violent  death  or  by  assassination. 

So  also  was  Scotland  a  feudal  anarchy.  So  also  were 
the  powers  of  the  crown  in  Scotland  in  continual  danger 
of  being  seized  by  usurpers  and  insurgents  as  in  the  case 
of  the  elder  Bothwell  and  the  younger  Bothwell :  in 
Scotland  also  almost  every  monarch  or  prominent  states- 
man did  meet  either  with  a  tragic  and  premature  death, 
or  with  a  death  by  assassination.  James  V.,  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots,  Darnley,  Rizzio,  Murray — these  were  only  the 
most  prominent  among  a  number  of  tragedies  :  assassina- 
tion was,  indeed,  the  recognised  method  by  which  a  great 
noble  removed  a  rival. 

Shakespeare  has  been  blamed  for  the  "  holocaust  of 


8       Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

dead  "  in  Hamlet ;  but  it  is  not  one  whit  more  remark- 
able than  the  mass  of  assassinations  in  sixteenth-century 
Scottish  histor}'.  The  Enghsh  of  Shakespeare's  day  had 
a  bitter  prejudice  against  Scotland,  and  very  largely  on 
account  of  this  anarchy. 

Yet  Shakespeare's  Denmark  is  no  mere  barbaric  country  ; 
it  is  distinguished  by  its  love  of  education,  its  philo- 
sophical depth,  and  its  power  of  thought  and  meditation. 
Of  all  Shakespeare's  tragedies  Hamlet  is  admittedly  the 
most  philosophic  and  the  most  profound ;  this  has  no 
parallel  whatever  in  the  original  saga,  but  it  has  a  parallel 
in  contemporary  Scotland, 

Knox  and  his  body  of  reformers  had  already  commenced 
that  educational  revival  which  was  to  make  Scotland  one 
of  the  most  admirably  educated  countries  in  Europe  ; 
their  intellectual  interests  were  largely  of  a  philosophical 
character. 

Now,  it  is  the  combination  of  these  circumstances  which  is 
so  peculiar,  which  is  indeed  unique,  and  it  is  precisely  this 
peculiar  combination  which  appears  in  Shakespeare's  Hamlet. 

Moreover,  it  should  be  noted  that  Shakespeare's  Denmark 
is  quite  manifestly  a  country  where  the  Catholic  faith  and 
the  Protestant  exist  side  by  side  ;  the  ghost  is  certainly 
a  Catholic,  for  he  laments  nothing  more  than  the  fact  that 
he  was  not  allowed  absolution  at  his  death,  that  he  was 

"  Cut  off  even  in  the  blossoms  of  my  sin, 
Unhousel'd,  disappointed,  unaneled. 
No  reckoning  made  but  sent  to  my  account 
With  all  my  imperfections  on  my  head." 

On  the  other  hand,  Hamlet  is  just  as  plainly  a  Protestant : 
he  has  been  a  fellow-student  with  Horatio  at  Wittenberg, 


Introduction  9 

and  it  is  to  Wittenberg  he  wishes  to  return.  Now  Witten- 
berg, on  account  of  its  connection  with  Luther,  was  one 
of  the  most  famous  of  Protestant  Universities. 

This  pecuhar  combination  is,  once  again,  exactly 
paralleled  in  contemporary  Scotland  ;  the  queen's  party 
were  Catholics ;  her  opponents  were  the  Protestant 
lords,  and  there  was  a  specially  close  connection  between 
Scotland  and  German  Protestant  Universities.  Knox 
himself  once  had  a  congregation  at  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main,^  and  there  were  many  other  Scotch  Protestants  in 
different  parts  of  Germany.  "  There  was  a  whole  Scoto- 
German  school,  among  whom  the  Wedderburns  were 
predominant." 

Again,  Shakespeare's  Denmark  is  a  place  where  the 
king  has  been  murdered  and  his  wife  has  married  the 
murderer.  This  also  happened  in  sixteenth-century 
Scotland  ;  Darnley  is  almost  invariably  alluded  to  in 
contemporary  documents  (Buchanan's  Oration  and  De- 
tection, for  instance),  as  the  "  king  "  ;  the  "  king  "  liad  been 
murdered,  and  his  wife  had  married  the  niurderer. 

Shakespeare's  Denmark  also  is  ;i.  place  wlure  a  councillor 
is  murdered  in  the  presence  of  a  queen,  and  his  body 
disposed  of  "  hugger-mugger "  fashion  by  a  staircase. 
This,  also,  had  happened  in  contemporary  Scut  land  in 
the  case  of  Rizzio's  murder. 

I  shall  show  later  that  in  both  these  cases  the  resemblances 
between  the  history  and  Shakespeare  are  much  more  close 
than  any  possible  resemblances  with  the  saga  source. 

Moreover,  Shakespeare's  Denmark  is  a  place  where 
there  is,  apparently,  no  army  at  the  king's  disposal,  and 

1  Froude,  Chap.  X. 


10     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

where,  when  discontented  nobles  desire  the  redress  of 
grievances,  they  enter  the  palace  at  the  head  of  an  armed 
band,  and  threaten  the  king's  person,  as  happens  with 
Laertes  and  Claudius.  This  was  positively  the  recognised 
method  of  conducting  an  opposition  in  sixteenth-century 
Scotland.  When  a  powerful  subject  had  a  grievance,  he 
did  at  once  put  himself  at  the  head  of  an  armed  band, 
and  either  threaten  the  person  of  the  king  or  attempt 
to  seize  upon  the  person  of  the  king. 

Then,  again,  there  is  the  love  of  strong  drink  which  is 
so  marked  a  feature  in  Shakespeare's  Denmark,  and  the 
drunken  carousals.  This  also  was  characteristic  of  a 
certain  conspicuous  group  in  sixteen th-centuiy  Scotland  ; 
Buchanan  continually  calls  the  elder  Bothwell  a  drunken 
beast.^ 

Moreover,  the  resemblance  extends  even  to  the  smallest 
details.  Shakespeare's  Denmark  shows  both  Italian 
and  Danish  names  at  court ;  so  did  contemporary 
vScotland,  there  was  a  Guildenstern  (like  Shakespeare's), 
and  a  Francesco  (like  Shakespeare's),  the  latter  being  a 
friend  of  Rizzio's. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that,  with  all  these  resemblances 
qui  te  obvious  and  on  the  surface,  an  Elizabethan  audience 
would  almost  certainlj^  assume  either  that  Shakespeare 
was  deliberately  depicting  contemporary  Scotland,  or,  at 
the  very  least,  that  he  was  deliberately  borrowing  many 
of  its  distinctive  traits.  The  resemblances  range  from  the 
most  inclusive  circumstances  to  the  smallest  details — 
they  embrace  the  peculiar  combinations  of  feudal  anarchy 
and  philosophy,  of  strong  drink  and  of  students  at  German 

^  Oration  and  Detection. 


Introduction  II 

universities,  and  they  even  include  a  Danish  Giiildenstern 
and  an  Itaiian  Francesco. 

And,  further,  is  there  anything  strange  in  such  a  resem- 
blance ?  Why  should  noi  Shakespeare  wish  to  depict 
sixteenth-century  Scotland  ?  It  was  a  country  in  which 
Shakespeare's  audience  were  intensely  interested :  it 
was  the  countr}^  which  was  just  about  to  pro\ide  them 
with  a  king  ;  it  was  a  country  whose  crown  was  to  be 
intimately  associated  with  theirs ;  a  study  of  its  leading 
traits  would  be  likely  to  interest  Shakespeare's  audience 
more  than  any  other  subject  which,  at  that  particular 
date,  it  would  be  possible  for  him  to  choose. 

Another  example  may  be  chosen  from  The  Merchant 
oj  Venice.  It  is  very  generally  admitted  that  Shake- 
speare's portrait  of  a  Jew  villain  is  probably  in  part  due 
to  the  great  excitement  caused  by  the  trial  of  a  Jew, 
Rodcrigo  Lopez,  for  the  attempted  murder  of  the  queen 
and  Don  Antonio  :  Lopez  was  executed  in  1594. 

Shakespeare,  in  drawing  the  portrait  of  the  Jew  villain, 
was  a\'ailing  himself  of  what  was  just  then  a  strong 
popular  excitement  against  the  Jews.  So  much  is  ad- 
mitted !  1 

But  surely  the  play  suggests  a  good  deal  more.  Antonio 
was  a  claimant  to  the  throne  of  Portugal  and,  as 
the  rival  claimant  was  Philip  II.,  Antonio  became,  on 
this  account,  a  very  popular  person  with  the  majority 
of  the  Elizabethans,  who  hated  Philip  and  instinctively 
took  the  side  of  anyone  opposed  to  him.  Antonio  had 
come  to  London,  bringing  with  him  exceedingly  valuable 
jewels  ;  his  purpose  was  to  pledge  these  with  the  merchants 
^  See  Boas,  Shakespeare  and  His  Predecessors. 


12     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

of  London,  and  so  to  procure  the  money  for  ships  to 
fight  Philip  of  Spain.  The  Essex  and  Southampton 
party — Shakespeare's  patrons — were  keenly  in  favour 
of  a  forw'ard  policy  against  Spain  and  consequently  in 
favour  of  Antonio.  On  the  other  hand,  Ehzabeth 
and  Burleigh  desired  peace ;  Antonio  was  allowed  to 
pledge  his  jewels  but,  on  one  pretext  or  another,  he  was 
prevented  from  getting  his  ships.  He  was  thus  in  the 
position  of  a  ruined  bankrupt,  and  popular  feeling  ran 
high  in  his  favour. 

Essex  started,  on  his  own  account,  a  system  of  espionage 
which  was  deliberately  intended  to  rival  that  of  Burleigh. 
His  spies  discovered  evidence  that  there  was  a  Spanish 
plot  to  poison  the  queen  and  Don  Antonio  by  using  the 
physician — Lopez,  as  an  intermediary.  Elizabeth,  at 
first,  refused  wholly  to  credit  the  existence  of  such  a  plot 
and  blamed  Essex  as  a  "  rash  and  temerarious  youth," 
for  bringing  accusations  against  the  innocent.  Essex, 
however,  persisted  ;  fresh  evidence  was  procured,  a  pubhc 
trial  was  ordered,  and  Lopez  was  condemned  to  death. 
Still  the  queen  delayed,  and  it  was  three  months  before 
she  could  be  induced  to  sign  the  death-warrant.  Even 
then  she  exercised  her  prerogative  so  far  as  to  allow  the 
family  of  Lopez  to  retain  a  considerable  portion  of  his  wealth. 

Lopez  had  professed  himself  a  Christian. 

As  Naunton  points  out  Elizabeth  was  regarded  as  a 
most  merciful  princess.  We  may  remember  that  one 
of  Spenser's  names  for  her  was  "  Mercilla."  ^  Now  this 
tendency  to  mercy  seemed  to  the  public  to  have  been 
exercised  too  far  in  the  Lopez  affair. 

*  Faerie  Queene,  Bk.  V 


Introduction  13 

We  might  also  observe  that  Don  Antonio  himself  was 
partly  Jewish  ;  he  was  the  son  of  a  Jewess  who  had 
become  converted  to  Christianity. 

Now,  surely,  we  have  here  very  remarkable  parallels 
to  Shakespeare's  play  ? 

We  have  Don  Antonio  who  has  been  a  very  wealthy  man 
but  who  has  practically  become  a  bankrupt  through  losses 
incurred  over  his  own  ships  ;  a  Jew  forms  a  plot  against 
his  life  and  nearly  succeeds,  but  it  is  discovered,  and  the 
Jew  punished. 

So  Shakespeare's  hero  is  an  Antonio ;  he  also  has 
been  wealthy,  but  is  reduced,  apparently,  to  bankruptcy 
by  losses  over  his  ships.  So  does  a  Jew  attempt  his  life  ; 
so  is  the  plot  frustrated. 

We  have  Elizabeth,  who  will  not  believe  in  the  guilt  of 
the  Jew,  who  makes  every  attempt  to  show  him  mercy, 
who  delays  almost  intolerably  over  his  trial,  but  who  is 
compelled  to  give  sentence  in  the  end  ;  we  have  the  fact 
that  she  was  famous  for  mercy,  and  that  one  of  her  poetic 
i\ames  was  "  Mercilla." 

So  Shakespeare  gives  us  Portia,  who  will  not  bcHcve  in  the 
guilt  of  the  Jew,  who  gives  him  every  possible  opportunity, 
who  identifies  herself  with  mercy  in  the  noblest  of  all  poetic 
praises  ;  but  who  is  compelled,  finally,  to  give  sentence. 

We  have  in  the  play,  just  as  in  the  history,  the  fact  that 
the  fine  upon  the  Jew's  goods  is  remitted,  and  that  they 
are  allowed  to  pass  to  his  children.  Moreover,  in  the 
life  of  Don  Antonio,  in  the  fact  that  his  mother  was  a 
Jewess  who  married  a  Christian,  we  have  a  parallel  to 
another  most  iatorestiiig  episode  in  Shakespeare's  play; 
tb.-^t  of  Lorenzo  mm.]  yes'^^i':a. 


14     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Is  it  not  probable  that  Shakespeare  selected  his  material 
and  chose  his  plot  largely  that  his  play  might  appeal  to 
interests  then  paramount  in  the  minds  of  his  audience  ? 

Surely  nothing  can  be  more  plausible  ? 

We  have  even,  in  Bassanio,  a  parallel  to  the  situation 
of  Essex  himself ;  he  is  the  friend  of  Antonio  ;  he  is  the 
soldier,  the  man  of  noble  birth  but  without  fortune,  who 
quite  frankly  approaches  Portia  to  "  repair  his  fortunes." 
So  was  Essex  the  friend  of  Don  Antonio  ;  so  had  Essex 
hoped  to  profit  by  his  ships,  so  was  Essex  a  soldier,  young 
and  of  noble  birth,  but  poor  ;  so  did  he  approach  Elizabeth 
in  the  frank  hope  of  mending  his  fortunes. 

We  also  observe  that,  if  Shakespeare  be  really  drawing 
parallels  with  history,  manv  of  the  adverse  criticisms 
on  his  play  find  at  least  their  explanation. 

Thus  there  is  simply  no  point  in  sentimentalising  over 
his  cruelty  in  compelling  Shylock  to  become  a  Christian  ; 
the  actual  historic  Jew  had  professed  Christianity  and 
did  profess  it  to  the  end.  Neither  need  we  blame  him  for 
allowing  Portia  to  drag  out  the  trial  scene  so  intolerably 
and  "  get  on  the  nerves  "  of  the  spectators  ;  it  was  just 
precisely  this  delay  which  had  "  got  on  the  nerves  "  of  the 
Elizabethan  pubUc.  Neither  need  we  wonder  that  Shake- 
speare allows  Portia  to  give  judgment  in  the  Duke's  own 
court :  it  was  with  Elizabeth  that  the  matter  finally  rested. 

Is  it  not  easy  to  see  that  Shakespeare  has  taken  his 
literary  source  and  has  dovetailed  into  it  a  great  deal  of 
history  as  well  ?  ^ 

Another  incident  I  will  select  is  from  Henry  IV.,  Part  II 
—the  famous  incident  of  the  repudiation  of  Falstaff. 
*  See  note  B,  Appendix. 


Introduction  15 

In  scene  after  scene  throughout  the  plays  we  have  seen 
Henry  rejoicing  himself  with  the  inimitable  wit  of  Falstaff, 
treating  him  as  his  boon  companion,  and  as  one  of  his 
most  intimate  friends  ;  then,  on  his  accession,  he  re- 
pudiates him  publicly  and  orders  him  to  be  haled  off 
to  prison,  for  we  hear  the  Chief  Justice  giving  the  order : 
"  Go,  carry  Sir  John  Falstaff  to  the  Fleet."  Is  not  this 
needlessly  harsh  and  stern  ?  How  often  has  this  parti- 
ticular  point  been  debated !  Some  of  Shakespeare's 
critics  do  accuse  Henry  of  unnecessary  harshness ;  a 
number  of  others  find  a  way  out  by  protesting  that  it 
was  essential  for  Henry  to  effect  a  complete  severance 
from  Falstaff.  Do  they  think  Shakespeare's  hero-king 
such  a  moral  weakhng  that  he  could  not  guard  himself 
against  the  temptations  of  "  sack  and  sugar  "  except  by 
putting  the  tempter  in  prison  ? 

The  truth  is  that  the  passage,  as  it  stands,  is  a  perpetual 
puzzle  to  the  modern  reader  who  finds  Falstaff  a  very 
fascinating  personage,  sympathises  with  him,  and  is 
convinced  that  Henry,  whatever  grounds  he  may  have 
had  for  ropiidialiug  Falstaff,  cannot  have  had  any  for 
imprisoning  him. 

The  explanation,  I  take  it,  is  again  historic.  The 
kings  of  the  house  of  Lancaster  had  an  exceedingly  bad 
title  in  point  of  law  ;  they  won  the  all-powerful  support 
of  the  Church  only  by  engaging  in  a  perpetuaJ  heresy- 
hunt  ;  hence  the  many  Lollard  trials  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  \'.  Now  we  know  that  in  the  original  version  of 
the  play,  Falstaff  was  called  Oldcastle,  and  Sir  John 
Oldcastle  was  the  greatest  of  all  Lollard  leaders. 

The   fact   of  his   imprisonment   was   simply   a  historic 


1 6     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

fact,  and  the  audience  knew  well  enough  the  reasons  for 
it  ;  the  historic  Henry  had  strained  himself  to  the  utmost 
in  the  effort  to  save  his  old  friend  from  the  ire  of  enraged 
ecclesiastics,  and,  even  when  he  was  imprisoned,  had 
tried  to  persuade  him  to  recant.  How  could  the 
audience  think  Henry  severe  when  they  knew  that  the  true 
offence  was  a  pohtical  one,  and  that  a  continuance  of  the 
friendship  on  Henry's  part  would  have  brought  down 
the  dynasty  ?  Surely  this  sheds  a  different  light  on 
Henry  ? 

It  also  throws  light  on  other  portions  of  the  play. 
Falstaff  repeatedly  claims  a  great  reputation  for  military 
skill,  a  European  reputation  in  fact,  for  he  says  that  he 
is  "  Sir  John  to  all  Europe."  Now  a  good  many  critics 
treat  this  as  simple  absurdity  on  his  part,  but  it  is  perfectly 
accurate  ;  Oldcastle  was  acknowledged  as  one  of  the  greatest 
soldiers  of  his  day.  Whether  Shakespeare  meant  him  to 
deserve  his  reputation  or  not  is  an  entirely  different  point, 
but  he  certainly  possessed  it.  Canon  Ainger  has  shown 
that  a  great  deal  in  the  character  of  Falstaff  can  be  ex- 
plained by  the  fact  that  the  Elizabethan  conception  of 
him  was  that  of  a  renegade  Puritan,  and  it  is  surely  equally 
appropriate  to  remember  that  he  had  the  reputation 
of  being  a  great  soldier.  That  is  the  joke  of  the  battle 
of  Shrewsbury.^  That  is  precisely  why  he  is  able  to 
claim,  with  any  hope  of  credence,  that  he  killed  Hotspur, 
and  that  is  preceisely  why  Sir  John  Colevile  of  the  Dale 
surrenders  to  his  reputation  only .2 

In  all  these  cases  the  historic  method  helps  us,  I  think, 
very   markedly   to   understand    the   plays   in   question ; 
1  Heyiry  IV.,  Part  I.-  »  Henry  IV.,  Part  11. 


Introduction  17 

on  the  othei  hand,  we  are  bound  to  admit  that,  if  we 
study  the  peculiar  point  of  view  of  the  Ehzabethan  mind, 
problems  are  often  suggested  where  all  might  otherwise 
to  the  modern  reader  appear  plain.  It  seems  to  me, 
however,  that  it  is  at  least  equally  necessary  to  study  the 
problems  which  thus  arise.  How  can  we  be  sure  that 
we  understand  him  fully  if  we  ignore  the  manner  in  which 
his  plays  and  his  subjects  were  likely  to  affect  contem- 
porary minds  ?  I  will  give  two  instances  where  important 
problems  suggest  themselves  which  have  not,  I  think, 
as  yet  been  resolved. 

Let  us  consider,  for  instance,  the  identity  of  Lear. 
Lear  appears  in  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  as  the  king  who 
foimded  the  city  of  Leicester,  and  it  is  ultimately,  though 
not  directly,  from  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  that  Shake- 
speare's version  of  the  story  is  derived.  Shakespeare 
has,  however,  altered  the  conclusion  and  hnked  the  whole 
with  an  entirely  different  tale — the  history  of  Gloucester 
and  his  sons — whose  source  is  Sidney's  Arcadia.  Now 
Lear  is  not  only  a  character  in  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  ; 
he  is  also  an  important  figure  in  Welsh  mythology  where 
his  daughter — Cordelia — ^has  as  rival  wooers  Modred 
and  Gwynn  ap  Nudd,  the  prince  of  fairyland  ;  these 
two  are  doomed  to  fight  for  her  every  first  of  May  until 
the  Day  of  Judgment. 

In  Irish  mythology  also  Lear  or  Lir  plays  an  important 
part,  and  his  children  are  turned  into  wild  swans. 

Now  what  is  Lear's  real  identity  ? 

Sir  John  Rhys  states  that  Lir  is  a  Celtic  sea-god ; 
Mr  Timothy  Lewis  tells  me  that  he  thinks  this  a  mistake, 
that  Lir  is  a  noun  used  as  an  adjective  and  means  the 

B 


1 8     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Ligurian  Sea  only,  but  not  any  other :  Lear  or  Lir  really 
means  the  Ligures  tribes  ;  there  were  a  number  of  such 
personages  in  ancient  Welsh ;  they  are  called  the  fathers 
of  the  British  race,  and  they  really  mean  the  invading 
tribes  from  the  Continent. 

Now  it  may  not  be  of  importance  to  our  Shakespearian 
study  to  know  what  Lear  really  and  essentially  is  ;  but 
it  is  surely  of  considerable  importance  to  know  what  the 
Elizabethans  thought  he  was. 

Was  Lear  a  man  or  a  god  or  a  tribe  ?  This  question 
is  not  even  asked.  The  majority  of  critics  are  Uke 
Mr  Bradley,  they  start  with  the  assumption  that  Lear 
was  an  ancient  British  king,  and  they  do  not  even  discuss 
the  possibility  that  the  Elizabethans  understood  Lear  as 
a  mythologic  figure  and  that  Shakespeare  himself  may 
have  meant  him  as  something  mythologic. 

Mr  Bradley's  omission  to  ask  the  question  is  the  more 
curious  because  he  himself  admits  that  Lear  produces 
on  his  mind  the  impression  of  being  strangely  remote 
from  ordinary  life  ;  the  tale,  as  such,  is  extravagantly 
improbable  and  yet  the  drama  is  enormously  great. 

"  This  world,"  says  Mr  Bradley,  "  is  called  Britain  ; 
but  we  should  no  more  look  for  it  than  for  the  place 
CcJled  Caucasus,  where  Prometheus  was  chained  by 
Strength  and  Force  and  comforted  by  the  daughters  of 
Ocean." 

And  elsewhere  he  says  that  he  finds  that  he  is  often 
grouping  the  play  in  his  own  mind  "  with  works  like  the 
Prometheus  Vinctus,  and  the  Divine  Comedy  and  even 
with  the  greatest  symphonies  of  Beethoven  and  the  statues 
in  the  Medici  Chapel." 


Introduction  19 

In  other  words,  the  play  makes  an  impression  closely 
resembling  that  of  mythologic  symbolism.  Very  well ! 
is  it  not  possible  that  Shakespeare's  audience  would  have 
conceived  Lear  as  a  figure  in  mythology  ? 

Or  consider  Othello  as  another  case  where  the  Eliza- 
bethan point  of  view  very  naturally  suggests  a  problem. 
From  Coleridge  to  Mr  Bradley  most  of  our  critics  assume 
that  Othello  is  meant  to  be  a  noble  character. 

Mr  Bradley  says  :  "  This  character  is  so  noble,  Othello's 
actions  and  feeling  follow  so  inevitably  from  it — and 
his  sufferings  are  so  heartrending  that  he  stirs  I  beUeve, 
in  most  readers,  a  passion  of  mingled  love  and  pity  which 
they  feel  for  no  other  hero  in  Shakespeare." 

Now,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  this  "  noble  "  person 
commits  great  crimes ;  he  murders  an  innocent  and 
devoted  wife,  and  plans  the  murder  of  a  loyal  friend  ;  it 
is  quite  true  that  Cassio's  assassination  is  averted,  but 
that  is  sheer  accident ;  it  is  not  owing  to  any  repentance 
in  Othello,  and  Othello  remains  morally  guilty  of  two 
murders,  both  of  innocent  people. 

These  are  ujidcniably  great  crimes ;  still  the  whole 
tendency  of  oiu"  modern  criticism  is  to  lay  all  the  stress 
upon  lago's  villainy  and  to  regard  Othello  as  being  almost 
wholly  a  victim.  But  now  let  us  make  one  enquiry  ! 
Such  a  subject  is,  in  itself,  an  excellent  dramatic  subject, 
and  it  is  easy  enough  to  understand  Shakespeare's  choice. 
But  why  if  it  be  really  his  intention  to  show  us  an  innocent 
noble  husband  driven  to  the  murder  of  an  innocent  wife, 
why  does  he  commence  with  making  his  hero  a  Moor  ? 
The  audience  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  an  mtense 
prejudice  against  Moors,  a  prejudice  at  least  as  strong  as 


20     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

an  audience  of  to-day  would  have  against  Prussian 
officers. 

The  Moors  were,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  most 
formidable  opponents  of  Christian  Europe  ;  their  valour 
had  threatened  its  complete  overthrow,  and  since  they 
were  heathen  and  formidable  opponents  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  they  were  regarded  as  the  accepted  types  of 
villainy.  We  see  this  in  the  second  book  of  Spenser's 
Faerie  Queene,  where  the  three  Saracens  are  the  most 
formidable  opponents  of  the  knight  Guyon ;  we  see  it  in 
Shakespeare's  ovm  Titus  Andronicus  where  the  Moor  is 
represented  as  absolutely  black,  and  also  a  villain  of  the 
most  dreadful  type. 

Even  modem  critics  like  Coleridge  and  Charles  Lamb 
feel  a  distinct  repulsion.  Coleridge  argues  that  Othello 
cannot  have  been  really  black,  but  must  have  been  brown  ; 
I  need  not  repeat  his  arguments,  for  every  one  knows 
them,  and  they  are  all  contradicted  by  the  simple  fact 
that  Shakespeare  makes  the  Moor  Aaron  absolutely 
black. 

Then,  again,  Charles  Lamb  says  that  he  prefers  Othello 
for  reading  rather  than  for  representation  on  the  stage, 
because  on  the  stage  his  black  face  alienates  the  sympathy 
of  the  audience.  Of  course  it  does.  But  the  prejudice 
excited  in  Charles  Lamb's  mind  must  have  been  as  nothing 
compared  to  the  prejudices  excited  in  the  minds  of  an 
Elizabethan  audience  for  whom  a  Moor's  black  face  was 
simply  the  accepted  s^^mbol  for  the  villainy  of  a  Moor's 
black  soul. 

Try  and  imagine  a  dramatic  author  of  to-day  doing 
anything    really    comparable !     Try    and    imagine    him 


Introduction  21 

representing  a  hero  who  murders  an  innocent  wife  and 
attempts  the  murder  of  an  innocent  friend  ;  supposing 
that,  notwitlistanding  these  dreadful  facts,  he  wishes  to 
awaken  the  utmost  sympathy  for  the  murderous  hero. 
Will  be  begin  by  making  his  hero  a  Prussian  officer  ?  Of 
course  not !  Our  dramatist  knows  perfectly  weU  that 
his  audience  have  a  prejudice  against  Prussian  officers 
of  the  intensest  possible  kind,  that  they  will  certainly, 
from  the  very  outset,  consider  the  hero  a  villain  and  that 
they  will  certainly,  from  the  very  outset,  expect  him  to 
do  something  unjust  and  abominable.  Surely  no 
dramatist  would  so  far  stultify  his  own  dramatic  intention  ? 

And  yet  even  the  case  of  the  Prussian  officer  is  not 
strong  enough,  for  it  does  not  include  the  colour  bar. 
Imagine  a  Prussian  officer  who  is  also  a  negro,  and  imagine 
the  play  acted  before  an  audience  of  Southern  State 
Americans  !  And  that  the  parallel  is  really  true  and  really 
just  anj'one  can  see  by  simply  referring  to  Shakespeare's 
source.  In  Cinthio's  novel  the  conclusion  drawn  is 
exactly  the  one  that  might  have  been  expected  ;  the 
noble  Venetian  lady  marries  the  Moor,  notwithstanding 
the  prohibition  of  her  parents,  and  the  result  is  what 
might  have  been  anticipated — a  cruel  murder. 

Now,  how  do  our  critics  get  out  of  this  difhculty  ? 
They  ne\'er  meet  it  fairly.  They  simply  assume,  like 
Mr  Bradley,  that  Shakespeare  was  gloriously  original, 
gloriously  in  advance  of  his  age.  This,  when  we  consider 
the  character  of  the  villainous  Moor  Aaron  seems  very 
doubtful ;  but,  even  supposing  Shakespeare  were  free 
from  the  prejudices  of  his  age,  was  his  audience  free  ? 
That  is  the  real  crux  of  the  whole  matter.     Mr  Bradley 


22     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

admits  that  even  Coleridge  could  not  rise  to  the  "  full 
glory  "  of  Shakespeare's  conception.  How,  then^  does 
Mr  Bradley  think  the  Elizabethan  audience  could  rise 
to  it  ?  Were  they  less  free  from  race  prejudice  than 
Coleridge,  the  devotee  of  the  rights  of  man  ? 

Moreover,  the  whole  difficulty  was  so  needless  !  As- 
suming that  all  Shakespeare  wished  to  do  was  to  write 
a  story  of  love  and  murderous  jealousy,  he  could  have 
easily  found  scores  and  scores  of  such  tales  which  were 
intrinsically  better  material  than  Cinthio's  novel.  The 
one  thing  that  is  peculiar  about  Cinthio's  novel  is  the  fact 
that  the  hero  is  a  Moor ;  in  other  words,  Shakespeare 
chose  precisely  the  story  which  included  the  one  thing 
likel}^  to  wreck  his  dramatic  effect  at  the  outset.  Is  this 
probable  ? 

Is  it  not  possible  that  Othello  is  really  meant  to  be  a 
villain,  and  that  his  great  qualities  arc  like  the  great 
qualities  of  Macbeth— things  which  do  not  prevent  the 
rest  of  the  man  from  being  evil  ? 

At  any  rate  the  difficulty  sliould  be  fairly  answered, 
and  I  submit  that  wc  cannot  do  this  without  a  most 
careful  historic  study. 

Moreover,  as  soon  as  we  take  the  Elizabethan  point  of 
view,  another  question  at  onre  suggests  itself.  Are  we 
justified  in  interpreting  Shakespeare,  as  completely  as 
we  do,  from  a  modern  psychological  standpoint  ? 

It  is  quite  true  that  every  era  which  is  interested  in 
human  nature  must  have  its  own  method  of  psychology  ; 
but  this  psychology  also  has  its  historical  development 
and  the  mcithod  of  one  age  differs  considerably  from  the 
method  of  another. 


Introduction  23 

Let  anyone  who  doubts  this  take  the  simplest  of  tests. 
Let  him  turn  to  Pope,  who  explains  his  own  psychology 
in  the  Moral  Essays,  The  Essay  on  Man,  and  elsewhere. 
The  virtue  of  human  life  depends  on  a  right  balance 
between  passion  and  reason  and,  according  to  him,  the 
key  to  character  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  ruling  passion  " — 
to  discover  a  man's  ruling  passion  is  to  know  him.  Now, 
Pope's  own  method  of  character-drawing  depends  on 
his  own  psycholog3',  and  is  to  be  explained  by  that 
psychology  ;  but  it  is  quite  obsolete  for  us.  Who  now 
thinks  of  the  "  ruling  passion  "  as  the  key  to  a  man's 
character  ? 

But  if  the  method  of  the  Queen  Anne  period  is  so  far 
obsolete,  should  we  not  expect  the  method  of  the  Eliza- 
bethans to  be  more  obsolete  still  ? 

Let  us  take  an  Ehzabethan  example  in  Ben  Jonson's 
Comedy  0/  Humours. 

This  is  how  Mr  Gregory  Smith  explains  Jonson's  psy- 
chology :  1  "In  the  older  physiology  the  four  major 
humours,  corresponding  with  the  four  elements — formed 
according  to  their  proportionate  allowances  in  each  body — 
the  "  temperament  "  or  "  complexion  "  or  "  constitu- 
tion "  of  a  man,  and  declared  his  character.  Variations 
in  the  relative  strength  of  these  humours  disclosed  the 
individual  differences.  These  differences  might  be  great 
or  small  in  respect  of  one  or  more  of  the  contributing 
humours.  By  simple  arithmetic  it  was  easy  to  show 
that  great  odds  were  against  any  two  men  having  the 
same  formula  of  temperament ;  and  so  the  theory  fitted 
itself  comfortably  to  experience." 

1  Ben  Jonson. 


24     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Now,  this  was  the  psycholog}'  of  one  of  Shakespeare's 
own  contemporaries.  If  Ben  Jonson's  psychology  was, 
to  our  own  thinking,  as  extraordinary  as  this,  what  was 
Shakespeare's  psychology  ?  Surely  we  ought  to  explain 
his  method  ?  Pope's  interpretation  of  character  depends 
upon  the  theory  of  the  ruling  passion,  which  he  regards 
as  the  key  to  it.  Ben  Jonson's  interpretation  of  character 
depends  upon  "  humours."  Both  these  methods  are 
obsolete  for  us.  Are  our  critics  likely  to  be  right  when 
they  represent  Shakespeare  almost  entirely  as  if  he  were 
a  modem  psychologist  writing  plays,  instead  of  novels. 
This  is  really  what  Mr  Bradley  does.  He  interprets 
Shakespeare  from  the  psychological  standpoint,  but 
without  once  explaining  what  Shakespeare's  psychology 
really  was  ;  he  assumes  that  it  was  like  our  own,  but  to 
do  so  is  surely  to  throw  Shakespeare  out  of  the  line  of 
his  historic  development. 

There  must  have  been  differences.  What  were  they  ? 
Not  even  a  genius  like  Shakespeare  can  anticipate  a 
method  three  centuries  ahead  of  his  own,  and  even  if  he 
had  possessed  such  a  truly  outstanding  gift  of  prophecy, 
we  are  only  once  more  "  up  against  "  our  main  problem, 
the  mentality  of  the  audience ;  his  audience  could  not 
possibly  have  understood  him. 

The  older  editors  of  Shakespeare — Malone,  for  instance 
—do  often  see  historical  parallels.  It  was  Coleridge 
wlio  set  the  fashion  of  treaiing  Shakespeare  mainly  from 
a  psychological  standpoint ;  this  was  natural  enough, 
for  Coleridge  was  himself  mainly  a  psychologist,  and  as 
he  himself  admits,  possessed  very  little  historic  sense  ; 
sve    may    add    lliat,    in    oddition,  there   was   very   little 


Introduction  25 

historical  material  available.  It  is,  however,  somewhat 
surprising  that,  as  the  historical  material  became 
available,  it  was  not  more  generally  employed.  Thus 
Mr  Bradley  (whom  I  quote  so  often,  because  he  has 
carried  this  method  to  its  farthest  point),  considers 
Shakespeare  as  almost  entirely  detached  from  his  time 
and  age  ;  the  four  great  tragedies  might  almost  have 
been  written  in  the  Age  of  Pericles  or  the  period  of 
the  Romantic  Revival  for  all  the  intimate  and  vital 
relation  that  Mr  Bradley  perceives  between  them  and 
their  own  age. 

But  is  this  probable  ? 

We  thus  arrive  at  two  very  startling  conclusions. 
One  is  that  Shakespeare,  though  perhaps  more  interested 
in  human  nature  than  any  man  who  has  ever  lived,  wrote 
with  almost  complete  indifference  to  his  own  era  ;  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  w^e  know  the  Elizabethan 
stage  was  continually  and  closely  associated  with  politics, 
and  that  Shakespeare's  own  company  twice  earned  the 
displeasure  of  authority  on  account  of  Shakespeare's 
own  plays,  two  ^  of  which  were  certainly  represented  as 
having  important  political  bearings. 

The  other  is  the  equally  startling  conclusion  that 
Shakespeare  can  be  best  interpreted  by  nineteenth- 
century  psychology,  not  a  sixteenth-century  psychology 
(for  that  would  probably  have  to  be  as  obsolete  as  Ben 
Jonson's)  ;  but  just  precisely  a  nineteenth-century 
psychology. 

Surely  these  results  are  very  curious  ? 

But,  it  will  be  asked,  if  Shakespeare's  greatest  characters 
'  Henyy  IV.  and  Richard  II. 


26     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

are   not   predominantly    psychological,  in   onr   sense    of 
the  term,  what  can  they  be  ? 

Let  me  take  an  illustration. 

Suppose  we  consider  again  Shakespeare's  Lear,  and 
compare  it  with  four  allied  characters,  four  characters 
who  have  much  in  common  with  him,  choosing  two  from 
ancient,  and  two  from  modern  literature.  Suppose  we 
compare  Lear  with  OEdipus  and  Priam  on  the  one  side,  and 
on  the  other,  with  Turgenieff' s  Lear  of  the  Steppes,  and 
Balzac's  Pere  Goriot.  With  which  group  has  Lear  most  in 
common  ?  To  me  it  seems  obvious  that  he  has  most  in 
common  with  CEdipus  and  Priam.  And  Mr  Bradley, 
when  he  compares  Lear  to  the  Protnetheus  Vinctus,  is 
feeUng  the  same  effect  that  I  feel.  But  CEdipus  and 
Priam  are  characters  in  Greek  mythology,  whereas 
Turgenieff's  Lear  and  Pere  Goriot  are  the  characters  of 
modern  psychological  realists. 

Be  it  observed  that  it  is  not  simply  a  question  of  genius, 
for  the  same  hand  which  drew  Lear  also  drew  Nym,  Pistol, 
and  Bardolph  ;  but  these  latter  belong  quite  plainly  to 
the  Comedy  of  Humours,  they  are  psychology  in  the 
sixteenth-century  {i.e.  Jonsonian)  sense  of  the  term ; 
but  they  do  not  produce  at  all  the  same  effect  as  Lear. 

What,  it  may  again  be  asked,  is  the  essential  difference 
between  mythology  and  psychology  ?  Well,  it  seems  to 
me  that  there  are  two  differences  which  go  to  the  root 
of  the  matter ! 

One  is  that  the  modern  psychologist  aims  especially 
at  the  realistic  portraits  of  individuals.  He  aims  at 
giving  you  the  sort  of  man  you  might  meet  anywhere,  and 
this  is  what,  when  successful,  he  does.     We  all  feel  that 


Introduction  27 

Tiirgenieff' s  Lear  and  Balzac's  Pere  Goriot  are  individuals 
whom  the  authors  might  actually  have  met,  and  probably 
did  meet.     They  are  people  of  common  hfe. 

But  do  we  feel  that  (Edipus  and  Priam  are  people  of 
common  life  ?  On  the  contrary.  The  poets  wish  to 
convey  the  impression  that  there  is  something  in  their 
heroes  which  is  more  than  ordinary  ;  they  are  not  merely 
ordinary  individuals,  they  are  something  above  and 
over.  WTien  Hermes  visits  Priam  he  compliments  the 
old  man  on  his  great  dignity  and  compares  him  to  the 
immortal  gods ;  "  divine  Priam "  is  one  of  Homer's 
most  constant  epithets. 

Now,  if  Hermes  had  ever  met  Lear  he  might  have  paid 
him  the  same  compliment.  Surely  there  is  something 
exceptional  and  almost  superhuman  in  the  greatest 
figures  of  Sliakespeare  ?  Do  they  produce  the  effect 
of  being  ordinary  or  even  extraordinary  individuals  ? 
Does  history  record  any  man  quite  as  pathetic  as  Lear,  or 
quite  as  interesting  as  Hamlet  ?  And  even  Lord  Bacon 
docs  not  seem  as  wise  as  Prospero.  Read  his  biography, 
and  place  it  side  by  side  with  Shakespeare's  PK^spero, 
and  see. 

Has  not  Shakespeare  himself  hinted  that  his  figures 
are  partly  mythologic  and  partly  symbolic  when  he 
withdraws  them  so  far  from  the  everyday  world.  Why 
is  Prospero  placed  in  a  magic  island  ?  Why  are  Hamlet 
and  Macbeth  and  Lear  all  withdrawn  into  a  remote  and 
almost  legendary  past  ?  Even  Othello,  who  is  much  more 
like  an  ordinary  human  being,  is  still  set  apart  as  if  he 
were  a  symbolic  figure  by  his  blackness. 

The  second  great  difference  between  the  mylhologist 


28     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

and  the  psychologist  is  that  the  latter  is  not  fundamentally 
historical,  whereas  the  former  is.,  The  modern  psy- 
chologist is  pre-eminently  an  egoist  and  an  individualist : 
he  choses  subjects  mainly  because  they  interest  him, 
and  all  the  importance  they  receive  for  others  will  be 
due  to  his  method  of  treatment.  In  other  words,  as 
HazUtt  says  of  Wordsworth,  he  does  not  wish  to  share 
his  o%vn  importance  even  with  his  subject.  Flaubert, 
for  instance,  chooses  in  Madame  Bovary  an  unimportant 
and  almost  trivial  heroine  ;  all  the  interest  is  lent  by  his 
method  of  treatment. 

The  mythologist,  on  the  other  hand,  deals  mth  the 
matter  which  is  traditional,  which  is  a  part  of  national 
history  and  which,  as  such,  is  already  interesting  to  his 
audience  as  in  the  case  of  the  Greek  dramatists  whose 
material  is  chosen  from  certain  definite  historic  cycles. 

Now,  in  this  respect,  Shakespeare  and  his  fellows  seem 
to  offer  a  curious  half-way  house.  Some  of  their  subjects 
— such  as  Lear  and  Macbeth — are  genuinely  traditional 
in  the  Greek  sense  ;  others — such  as  Othello — are  derived 
from  known  sources  but  are  not  exactly  traditional. 

Now,  if  Shakespeare  be  truly  a  psychologic  realist,  it  is 
exceedingly  difficult  to  see  why  he  did  not  invent  his  own 
plots.  To  economise  labour  is  the  usual  reply — ^he  took 
what  was  to  hand  to  save  himself  trouble.  Yes  !  But 
the  method  which  he  actually  did  adopt  was  one  which 
saved  him  no  labour  whatever,  not,  at  least,  in  the  majority 
of  cases. 

As  anyone  can  see  by  comparing  the  two  together, 
Shakespeare  always  reconstructs  his  source,  and  often 
alters  it  almost  beyond  recognition.     In  the  case  of  Lear, 


Introduction  29 

for  instance,  the  original  story  ended  happily,  so  far, 
at  any  rate,  as  Lear  himself  was  concerned  ;  the  good 
daughter — Cordelia — restored  him  to  his  kingdom,  and 
he  reigned  in  peace  until  his  death. 

This  is  the  version  as  we  find  it  in  practically  all  the 
Elizabethan  sources  ;  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  HoHnshed, 
The  Mirror  jor  Magistrates,  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene, 
etc.,  etc. 

Moreover,  in  the  original  story,  there  was  no  Gloucester, 
no  Edmund,  no  Edgar,  all  these  figures  come  from  a 
totally  different  source  in  Sidney's  Arcadia,  and  they 
alter  the  whole  bias  of  the  plot.  Why  not  recognise 
that  the  resulting  story  is  really  a  new  thing,  and  call  it 
by  a  new  name  ? 

Surely  we  find  ourselves  here  on  the  horns  of  a  very 
curious  dilemma  !  Does  Shakespeare  choose  the  subject 
of  King  Lear,  as  Coleridge  says  he  did,  because  it  was 
already  endeared  to  the  minds  of  his  audience  ?  Quite 
possiblj' ! 

But,  if  so,  why  does  he  alter  it  so  amazingly,  for  there 
is  nothing,  as  a  rule,  which  people  more  resent  than  an 
unfamiliar  ending  to  a  familiar  tale  ? 

Moreover,  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  Lear  does  not  strip 
himself  entirely ;  he  retains  a  certain  portion  of  his 
kingdom  for  himself,  and  it  is  to  gain  this  portion  that 
Goneril  and  Regan  make  war  upon  him.  Thus,  in  the 
original  tale,  Lear,  Goneril  and  Regan  are  all  of  them 
more  intelligible  in  their  actions  than  they  are  in  Shake- 
speare. But  why  take  an  improbable  plot,  and  then 
proceed  to  make  it  still  more  improbable  by  your  method 
of  treatment  ? 


30     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

The  case  is  even  more  curious  when  we  turn  to  compare 
Hamlet  with  its  source. 

In  the  original  Amleth  saga  there  is  no  ghost,  no  Polonius, 
no  Opheha,  no  Laertes  ;  the  Polonius  and  Laertes  story 
simply  does  not  exist  in  the  Amleth  saga,  and  the  ending 
is  totally  different,  for  the  prince  conquers  his  opponents, 
gets  himself  happily  married  to  an  English  princess,  and 
succeeds  triumphantly  to  his  father's  throne.  When  he 
has  killed  his  uncle  he  makes  a  speech  to  the  assembled 
people :  "  It  is  I  who  have  wiped  off  my  country's 
shame  ;  I  who  have  quenched  my  mother's  dishonour ; 
I  who  have  beaten  back  oppression  ;  I  who  have  put 
to  death  the  murderer  ;  I  who  have  baffled  the  artful 
hand  of  my  uncle  with  retorted  arts.  Were  he  hving, 
each  new  day  would  have  multiplied  his  crimes.  I 
resented  the  wrong  done  to  father  and  to  fatherland  : 
I  slew  him  who  was  governing  you  outrageously, 
and  more  hardly  than  beseemed  men.  Acknowledge 
my  service,  honour  my  wit,  give  me  the  throne  if  I 
have  earned  it." 

Amleth  makes  a  long  speech  to  this  effect,  and  the 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  : 

"  Every  heart  had  been  moved  while  the  young  man 
thus  spoke  ;  he  affected  some  to  compassion,  and  some 
even  to  tears.  When  the  lamentation  ceased,  he  was 
appointed  king  by  general  acclaim." 

Moreover,  the  character  of  the  hero  is  quite  different 
for  the  hero  of  the  Amleth  saga  never  hesitates  over 
his  vengeance,  but  pursues  it  with  undeviating  energy. 
It  is  just  because  he  does  show  such  a  magnificent 
combination  of    energy  and    subtlety    that    the    people 


Introduction  31 

choose  him  as  king.  In  fact,  we  should  hardly  know 
that  Hamlet  was  supposed  to  be  drawn  from  the  Amleth 
saga,  were  it  not  for  the  similarity  of  the  names,  and 
for  the  fact,  that,  in  each  case,  the  hero  is  a  Prince  of 
Denmark. 

Why  retain  the  names  when  they  mean  so  little  ?  Why 
not  acknowledge  that  the  story  is  new  ? 

In  the  case  of  Hamlet,  at  any  rate,  I  shall  endeavour 
to  answer  the  question  in  the  following  pages. 

I  would  sum  up  as  follows  : 

(i)  Shakespeare  wrote  his  plays  for  a  defmite  audience 
at  a  definite  point  of  time.  We  know  the  period  at  which 
the  plays  were  written,  and  we  know,  within  a  few  years, 
the  dates  of  the  greater  number.  It  should,  therefore,  be 
possible  to  discover  with  more  or  less  accuracy  what 
the  plays  would  mean  for  their  intended  audience,  and 
we  cannot  be  sure  that  we  comprehend  them  fully  until 
we  study  the  point  of  view  of  this  audience. 

(2)  The  point  of  view  of  an  Elizabethan  audience  can 
only  be  understood  by  means  of  a  careful  study  of  the 
history  of  the  <'(iic  ^>hich  should,  therefore,  be  an  integral 
part  of  the  study  of  I  lie  plays, 

(3)  It  is  pussibic  that  \vc  interpret  Shakespeare  too 
purely  from  a  psychological  standpoint ;  in  any  case, 
the  psychology  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  bound  to  differ 
from  that  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  it  is  important 
to  show  in  what  its  differences  consist. 

I  propose  to  apply  this  new  method,  as  fully  and  as 
carefully  as  I  can,  in  the  case  of  Hamlet. 

My  one  ;iim  throughout  will  be  to  get  the  point  of  view 
of  the  Fliz.ibclbaii  audiiMice  and  to  make  out,  as  far  as 


32     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

I  can,  what  the  play  would  mean  to  them,  and  what  they 
would  be  likely  to  see  in  it. 

I  feel  sure  that  the  method  is  valid,  though  the  results 
obtained  from  it  certainly  differ  greatly  from  any  of  my 
own  preconceived  ideas. 


CHAPTER  I 

RICHARD   II.    AND   HAMLET 

The  date  of  Hamlet  is  uncertain,  but  a  careful  examina- 
tion of  the  e\adence  suggests  that  Shakespeare's  first 
sketch  of  the  play  was  written  in  1601,  and  that  this  was 
expanded  into  the  final  form  in  1603-4.  1^  seems  likely 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  his  first  draft  in  1601,  while  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  men  were  travelling  because  they 
were  for  the  time  being  out  of  favour  at  Court  on  account 
of  their  connection  with  the  Essex  conspiracy  ;  this  is 
apparently  referred  to  in  the  allusion  to  the  "inhibition 
of  the  players  to  perform  in  the  city  owing  to  the  late 
innovation."^ 

The  whole  question  of  Richard  II.  is  so  closely  bound 
up  with  that  of  Hamkt,  that  it  is  necessary  to  dwell  upon 
it  here  at  some  length.  It  will  show  us,  for  one  thing,  how 
intimately  Shakespeare's  company  and  he  himself  were 
connected  with  political  matters  through  the  medium 
of  Shakespeare's  own  plays,  and  it  will  show  us  also  how 
material  which  might  in  itself  seem  innocent  was  regularly 
adapted  to  political  purposes. 

In  the  year  1596  the  Pope  published  a  bull  empowering 

Elizabeth's    own    subjects    to    depose    her.     The    queen 

knew  that  there  was  much  discontent  with  her  policy  ; 

Essex  was  an  exceedingly  popular  and  exceedingly  gifted 

*  See  Boas,  Shakespeare  and  His  Predecessors. 

C  33 


34     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

soldier,  and  his  enemies  insinuated  to  the  queen  that  he 
aimed  at  deposing  her,  and  seizing  the  crown  for  himself, 
Nuw  Richard  II.  was  a  king  who  had  been  deposed,  and 
the  Essex  partisans  were  suspected  of  using  his  fate  as  a 
kind  of  symbol  of  what  Essex  intended  with  Elizabeth. 
The  queen  and  her  ad^'ise^s  revealed  continual  nervous- 
ness on  this  subject. 

On  July  iiih,  1600,^  interrogations  and  notes  were 
presented  by  Attorney-General  Coke  on  Dr  Haj^^'arde's 
book  on  Richard  II.  in  proof 

"  that  the  Doctor  selected  a  story  200  years  old  and  published 
it  last  year  intending  the  application  of  it  to  this  time,  the 
plot  being  that  of  a  king  who  is  taxed  for  misgovernment  and 
his  counsel  for  corrupt  and  covetous  deaUngs  lor  private 
ends  ;  the  king  is  censured  for  conferring  benefits  on  hated 
favourites,  the  nobles  become  discontented  and  the  commons 
groan  under  continual  taxation,  whereupon  the  king  is 
deposed  and  in  the  end  murdered." 

Ha5'warde  (it  is  stated)  confessed  that  he  had  altered 
history  in  certain  respects  to  suit  his  purposes  ;  as,  for 
instance,  havang  heard  of  a  benevolence  under  Richard  III. 
he  transferred  it  to  Richard  II. 

Jul}''  2ist,  1600.     Essex  admitted  his  treason. 

"He  permitted  underhand  that  treasonable  book  of  Henr^'IV, 
to  be  printed  and  published  ;  it  being  plainly  deciphered,  not 
only  by  the  matter  and  by  the  epistle  itself  ;  for  what  end 
and  for  whose  behalf  it  was  made,  but  also  the  Earl  himself 
being  so  often  present  at  the  playing  thereof^  and  with  great 
applause  giving  countenance  to  it." 

January  22nd,  1601.     The  examination  of  Dr  Haywarde 

show<.;d  how  repeatedly  he  had  altered  his  book. 

'  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Green. 

*  This  was,  apparently,  Shakespeare's  play. 


Richard  II.  and  Hamlet  35 

"  Read  in  Bodires  and  other  authors  that  the  subject 
was  bound  to  the  state  rather  than  to  the  person  of  the 
King  ;  inserted  it  as  spoken  by  the  Earl  of  Derby  and  Duke 
of  Hereford  to  serve  his  own  turn  .  .  .  did  not  invent  the 
Earl's  speech  as  it  is,  but  found  it  somewhere.  Set  forth  the 
oration  of  the  Bishop  of  Canterbury  according  to  matter 
found  in  other  authorities  and  cannot  affirm  that  he  found 
these  eight  stories  in  any  oration  the  Archbishop  made  • 
but  it  is  lawful  for  an  historian  so  to  do. 

"  Confesses  that  it  is  his  own  speech  that  it  was  not  amiss  in 
regard  of  the  Commonwealth  that  King  Richard  II.  was  dead 
because  it  prevented  civil  war  through  two  competitors  .  .  . 
asked  where  he  found  the  description  of  the  Earl  ,  .  .  says 
that  he  found  in  Hall  and  others  that  he  was  of  popular 
behaviour,  but  for  the  particulars  he  took  the  liberty  of  the 
best  writers. 

"  Gathered  the  description  of  the  Earl  out  of  his  actions ; 
found  the  matter  but  not  the  form  of  the  words." 

Ha5A\'arde's  book  was  dedicated  to  Essex  in  terms 
which  in  themselves  suggested  suspicions :  the  dedication 
ran : 

"  Roberto  Comiti  Essexi^e  .  .  .  Vicecomiti  Herefordias  " 
"  cujus  nomen  si  Henrici  nostri  fronte  radiaret,  ipse  e  latior 
et  tutior  in  vulgus  prodiret  Magnus  siquidem  es  et  present! 
judicio  et  futuri  temporis  expectatione  :  in  quo,  veluti  re- 
cuperasse  non  oculos  caeca  prius  fortuna  videri  potest." 

The  phrase  about  his  future  greatness  was  taken  as 
referring  to  an  expectation  of  the  kingship. 

The  same  book  was  referred  to  by  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  at 
the  Essex  trial,  February  13th,  1601  ^  : 

"  He  {i.e.  Essex)  conspired  with  Tyrone  that  Tyrone  should 
land  in  England  with  an  Irish  army  .  .  .  these  things  ap- 
peared by  the  book  written  on  Henry  IV.,  making  this  time 

^  State  Papers,  Green. 


36     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

seem  like  that  of  Richard  II.,  to  be  by  him  as  by  Henry  IV, 
deposed.  .  .  .  He  would  have  removed  her  Majesty's  servants, 
stepped  into  her  chair  and  perhaps  had  her  treated  like 
Richard  II." 

And  again  : 

"  He  came  over  from  Ireland  so  unexpectedlj'  to  remove 
such  from  the  Queen  as  he  misliked,  and  could  not  bend  to 
his  traitorous  faction  ;  then  Tyrone  and  he  were  to  join  their 
forces  and  by  destroying  her  Majesty  Essex  to  be  made  King 
of  England." 

The  same  book  is  once  more  made  important  evidence 
against  Essex  in  the  "  Directions  to  Preachers  "  given  on 
February  14th  : 

"  Two  years  since  a  history  of  Henry  IV.  was  printed  and 
published  wherein  all  the  complaints  and  slanders  which 
have  been  given  out  by  seditious  traitors  against  the  Govern- 
ment, both  in  England  and  Ireland,  are  set  down  and  falsely 
attributed  to  those  times,  thereby  cunningly  insinuating  that 
the  same  abuses  being  now  in  this  realm  that  were  in  the 
days  of  Richard  II.,  the  like  course  might  be  taken  for 
redress.  .  .  . 

"The  Earl  confessed  that  he  kept  the  copy  with  him  14 
days,  jjlotting  how  he  might  become  another  Henry  IV.  .  .  . 

"If  he  had  not  been  prevented  there  had  never  been  a 
rebellion  in  England  since  Richard  TI.  more  desperate  and 
dangerous.  ..." 

James  Knowle  said  he  had  agreed  with  Tyrone  that 
Tyrone  should  be  king  of  Ireland  and  Essex  of  England.^ 

Now,  Shakespeare's  company  w^ere  almost  as  much 
involved  as  Dr  Haywarde  in  the  dispute  over  Richard  II., 
as  is  shov^Ti  by  the  examination  of  Atigustino  Phillips 
(February  i8th)  ;  Phillips  is  described  as  a  servant  to 
the   Lord   Chaml^erlain,    and   was   therefore   certainly   a 

^  State  Papers,  Green. 


Richard  II.  and  Hamlet  37 

member  of  Shakespeare's  company.      "On  Thursday  or 

Friday  seven-night,"  runs  the  deposition, 

"  Sir  Charles  Percy.  Sir  Josceline  Percy,  Lord  Mounteagle  and 
several  others  spoke  to  some  of  the  players  to  play  the 
deposing  and  killing  of  King  Richard  and  promised  to  give 
them  40  shillings  more  than  their  ordinary  to  do  so. 

Examinate  and  his  fellows  had  determined  to  play  some 
other  play,  holding  that  of  King  Richard  as  being  so  old  and 
so  long  out  of  use  that  they  should  have  a  small  company  at 
it,  but  at  this  request  they  were  content  to  play  it." 

Not  only  did  they  play  it,  but  they  went  on  playing  it 
some  forty  times  in  all  during  the  whole  period  of  the 
trial  and  execution.     Wyndham  says  in  this  connection  : 

"  Theatres  were  then,  as  newspapers  are  now,  the  cock-pits 
of  religious  and  literary  contention.  .  .   . 

"  The  City  Councillors  could  well,  had  they  so  minded,  have 
prevented  the  performance  of  Richard  II.,  with  his  deposition 
and  death  some  '  forty  times  '  in  open  streets  and  houses,  as 
Elizabeth  complained  ;  and  indeed  it  is  hard  to  account  for 
the  Queen's  sustained  irritation  at  this  drama  save  on  the 
ground  of  its  close  association  with  her  past  fears  of  Essex- 
Months  after  the  Earl's  execution  she  exclaimed  to  Lambard  • 
'  I  am  Richard  the  Second,  know  ye  not  that  ?  ' 

"  Shakespeare's  colleagues,  acting  Shakespeare's  plays,  gave 
umbrage  to  Essex's  political  opponents  in  Henry  I V.,  applauded 
his  ambition  in  Henry  V.,  and  were  accessories  to  his  dis- 
loyalty in  Richard  II."  ^ 

Shakespeare's  company  having  incurred  the  serious  dis- 
pleasure of  the  queen,  did  not  perform  at  Court,  Christmas 
1601-2,  and  it  was  during  the  period  of  their  disgrace  that, 
according  to  Mr  Boas,^  Hamlet  was  most  probably  produced. 

Three  things  become  at  once  obvious  when  we  consider 
the  above  facts  carefully. 

*  Poems  of  Shakespeare. 

'^  Shakespeare  and  His  Predecessors. 


38     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

(i)  That  seemingly  innocent  subjects  might  be  used, 
and,  apparently,  were  often  used,  as  in  the  case  of 
Richard  II.,  with  a  direct  political  bearing. 

(2)  That  Shakespeare's  company  were  twice  accused  ^ 
of  using  plays — Henry  IV.,  Richard  II. — for  political 
purposes. 

(3)  That,  in  each  case,  the  dramatic  author  involved 
was  Shakespeare  himself. 

Now,  what  was  the  reply  of  Essex's  friends  to  the 
accusation  that  he  had  intended  to  emulate  Henry  of 
Lancaster  and  make  himself  King  of  England  ?  The 
answer  was  that  Essex  was  an  impassioned  partisan  of 
James  I.  and  of  the  Scottish  succession,  and  that  he  had 
fallen  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  James.  Let  us  examine 
the  political  situation  a  little  more  closely  in  order  to  see 
how  this  came  about.  Let  us  endeavour  to  place  ourselves 
in  the  exact  position  of  an  Elizabethan  audience  when 
the  play  of  Hamlet  was  produced. 

During  the  last  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign  the  great 
problem  of  practical  politics  lay  in  the  succession  to  the 
throne.  The  queen  was  visibly  growing  feeble ;  she 
hated  any  mention  of  a  successor  ;  but  it  was  obvious 
that,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  her  hfe  could 
not  last  much  longer.  The  Tudor  policy  had  been  to 
concentrate  power  in  the  hands  of  the  monarchy,  and, 
therefore,  the  character  of  the  sovereign  was  all  powerful 
in  determining  the  future  of  the  realm. 

Foreign  politics  presented  many  points  of  extreme 
difficulty  ;  Spain  was  still  a  most  powerful  and  dangerous 
foe,  continually  plotting  new  Armadas :  there  was  a  plot 

^  Sec  Iiitroductiou. 


Richard  II.  and  Hamlet  39 

for  a  landing  at  Milford  Haven  in  the  very  year  of  the 
queen's  death,  1603. ^ 

At  no  period  in  Enghsh  history  had  the  character  of 
the  monarch  been  more  important,  and  in  no  single 
instance  had  the  succession  been  so  doubtful  and  men's 
minds  so  hopelessly  distracted. 

James  of  Scotland  was,  imdoubtedly,  the  person  who 
had  the  best  title  to  the  crown,  but  there  were  many 
reasons  against  him  ;  he  had  been  set  aside,  somewhat 
unaccountabl5^  by  the  will  of  Henr}'  VIII.  in  favour  of 
a  younger  branch  ;  he  was  a  Scot,  and,  as  such,  might 
be  considered  ineligible ;  by  English  law  no  Scottish 
subject  could  inherit  landed  property  in  England,  not 
even  the  smallest  estate ;  how  then,  the  lawyers  argued, 
could  a  Scot  inherit  the  throne  ?  ^ 

There  was  also  a  considerable  amount  of  prejudice 
against  Scotland  simply  as  a  country. 

"  It  is  difficult,"  says  Mr  Martin  Hume,  "  for  Englishmen  in 
these  times  to  conceive  the  distrust  and  dislike  then  entertained 
for  Scotchmen.  They  were,  of  course,  foreigners  and  had  for 
centuries  been  more  or  less  closely  allied  to  France,  the 
secular  enemy  of  England  ;  their  country  was  poor  and  a 
large  portion  of  it  in  semi-savagery."  =» 

The  Protestantism  of  Scotland  was,  naturally,  a  feature 
in  its  favour  ;  the  English  had  vehemently  taken  the  side 
of  Murray  and  his  Protestant  lords  as  against  the  queen  ; 
the  English  populace  embraced  the  cause  of  Murray  far 
more  ardently  than  Elizabeth  herself ;  they  espoused 
absolutely  the  cause  of  the  Scottish  lords,  and  when  the 

^  Martin  Hume,  Philip  II.  (Cambridge  Modern  History,  III.). 

»  Burton. 

3  Siy  Waller  Rah-h. 


40     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Scottish  lords  commissioned  the  historian — Buchanan — ^to 
defend  their  actions,  the  Enghsh  populace  probably 
accepted  as  accurate  every  word  of  his  terrific  indictment. 

English  sentiment  was,  on  the  whole,  strongly  in 
favour  of  James  of  Scotland  ;  he  was  the  natural  heir, 
and  notwithstanding  all  prejudices  against  Scotland,  there 
was  an  obvious  and  great  advantage  to  be  gained  by 
uniting  the  whole  island  under  one  rule.  The  partisans 
of  James  ver}'  naturally  pointed  out  the  immense  benefits 
that  would  accrue  from  the  union  of  the  crowns,  and 
especially  the  great  increase  of  safety  to  England  herself. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  those  plays  of  Shakespeare 
which  are  obviously  connected  with  Essex  are  also  plays 
which  all  lay  stress  on  the  unity  of  Britain.  Thus,  in 
Henry  V.,  he  pays  an  open  and  daring  compliment  to 
Essex,^  then  in  Ireland,  and  it  is  also  in  Henry  V.  that 
he  introduces,  obviously  as  symbols  of  national  unity, 
the  four  soldiers  drawn  from  the  four  quarters  of  Britain : 
Gower  the  Englishman,  Fluellen  the  Welshman,  Macmorris 
the  Irishman,  and  Jamy  the  Scotchman.  This  would  be 
absurdly  impossible  in  the  time  of  the  actual  Henry  V.  ; 
but  it  represents  the  exact  ideal  at  which  the  partisans 
of  the  Scottish  succession  were  aiming  when  the  play  was 
written.  The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  famous 
speech  of  the  dying  John  of  Gaunt  in  Richard  II.  : 

"  This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  scepter 'd  isle 

This  fortress  built  by  Nature  for  herself 
Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war." 

English  sentiment  was,  for  these  reasons,  strongly  in 

'  Act  v.,  Chorus. 


Richard  II.  and  Hamlet  41 

favour  of  James  of  Scotland  ;  but  it  could  not  be  said  to  be 
unanimous  ;  there  were  the  legal  difficulties  in  the  way,  and 
a  further  difficulty  lay  in  the  character  of  James  himself. 

James'  character  had,  or  seemed  to  have,  many  ad- 
mirable traits  ;  but  it  was  a  baffling  and  a  difficult  one. 
He  had  a  great  reputation  for  learning,  and  for  interest 
in  philosophy  and  theology  ;  he  was  mild  and  merciful 
by  temperament,  sternness  and  cruelty  were  far  from 
him  ;  he  hated  bloodshed,  and  he  was  the  least  revengeful 
of  men ;  no  trait  in  him  was  more  marked  than  his 
reluctance  to  punish  even  when  punishment  seemed  just 
and  necessary,  and  most  of  the  odium  he  incurred  in  life 
was  on  account  of  this  very  reluctance.  His  whole  tone 
of  mind  was  serious  and  reflective,  and,  though  he  was 
often  coarse  in  his  language,  he  was  exempt  from  the 
grosser  vices. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  was  totally  unlike  the  Tudor 
sovereigns  with  their  love  of  pleasure,  their  bonhomie, 
their  frank  willingness  to  mingle  with  all  classes  of  their 
subjects.  He  was  melancholy  and  retiring  ;  he  had  one 
confidant  in  the  Earl  of  Mar,  his  fellow-pupil  under 
Buchanan — in  whom  he  seemed  to  repose  imphcit  trust ; 
but  to  the  majority  of  men  he  was  inaccessible  and  difficult. 
He  loved  seclusion  in  a  way  almost  incomprehensible  to 
people  accustomed  to  the  bustling  and  vigorous  tempera- 
ment of  the  Tudors. 

His  political  position  was,  and  always  had  been,  one  of 
extraordinary  difficulty  ;  with  his  father  murdered,  his 
mother  in  lifelong  imprisonment,  and  his  country  full  of 
factious,  partisan  nobles,  there  seems  to  have  been  no 
one,    except   possibly   Mar,    whom   he   could   intimately 


42     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

trust.  His  weapons  in  these  circumstances  were  a  baffling 
subtlety,  a  habit  of  verbal  fence,  a  passion  for  keeping 
his  own  counsel  which  went  so  far  that  he  was  at  times 
suspected  of  insanity.  His  position  made  him  a  very 
close  student  of  men  and  manners,  for  his  very  existence 
depended  on  the  care  and  accuracy  of  his  judgment ; 
almost  all  his  Stuart  predecessors  had  met  premature 
deaths,  several  by  assassination,  and  he  only  escaped  a 
similar  fate  by  his  reticence  and  subtlety,  his  genius  for 
evasion.  All  his  life  he  prided  himself  on  his  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  his  power  of  judging  character  at  a 
glance,  and  so  far  as  his  youth  was  concerned,  he  had 
apparently  exercised  that  knowledge  with  considerable 
skill ;  at  any  rate  he  preserved  himseK  from  a  premature 
death  which  was  more  than  any  of  his  Stuart  predecessors 
had  done. 

His  melancholy,  his  love  of  seclusion,  his  baffling 
subtlety,  the  occasional  doubts  of  his  sanity  might  all 
be  explained  by  the  difficulties  of  his  position,  and  by 
the  shifts  to  which  he  was  put  in  extricating  himself  from 
such  serious  perils. 

His  extraordinary  carelessness  and  untidiness  in  dress, 
which  revolted  many  observers,  might  possibly  be  set 
down  to  a  similar  cause. 

More  serious  defects,  however,  suggested  themselves, 
the  most  fatal  being,  apparentl}-,  a  singular  vacillation 
and  weakness  of  will.  The  Tudors  had  been,  above  all, 
strong  and  vigorous  statesmen ;  they  were  powerful 
rulers ;  their  will-power  and  determination  ranked  wth 
their  popularity  among  their  chief  assets.  But  James 
seemed   incapable   of  strong   and   effective   action ;    he 


Richard  II.  and  Hamlet  43 

allowed  the  younger  Bothwell  to  usurp  power  and 
practically  make  himself  the  master  of  Scotland  while 
he,  James,  stood  aside  in  comparative  retirement  ;  the 
younger  Bothwell  held  him  in  a  kind  of  duresse  vile,  and 
James  made  no  effective  protest. 

Anyone  who  will  read  the  correspondence  of  Elizabeth 
and  James  will  see  how  continually  the  queen  reproaches 
him  for  these  defects  of  character  ;  he  knows  very  well, 
she  maintains,  that  his  subjects  destroy  his  royal  authority, 
and  even  plot  against  his  life  ;  but  he  does  not  execute 
justice.  It  is  right  to  be  merciful ;  but  when  mercy 
shows  itself  as  complaisance  towards  villains  and 
scoundrels,  then  mercy  itself  becomes  a  weakness. 

It  is  his  duty  as  a  king  to  defend  his  realm  against 
evil  doers,  to  execute  justice,  and  to  punish  rebels  ;  his 
realm  is  a  mass  of  disorder  ;  it  proceeds  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  it  is  his  fault  because  he  does  not  punish  where 
punishment  is  due.  So  long  as  violence  is  allowed  to 
flourish,  there  can  be  no  security  in  a  kingdom.  Elizabeth 
reiterates  these  charges  again  and  again,  in  different 
epistles  and  in  various  ways.  And  James  hardly  defends 
himself.  He  practically  admits  that  the  indictment  is 
just ;  he  sees  what  he  ought  to  do,  but  he  cannot  do  it ; 
he  knows  very  well  that  the  times  are  out  of  joint,  but 
he  does  not  feel  himself  vigorous  enough  to  set  them 
right ;  he  cannot  assume  the  necessary  severity.  The 
queen  accuses  him  continually  of  vacillation  and  delay ; 
he  knows  what  he  ought  to  do,  why  does  he  not  do  it  ? 
And  James  can  only  reply  by  admitting  the  procrasti- 
nation and  acknowledging  the  delay.  From  the  Tudor 
point  of  view,  this  vacillation  of  will  and  this  procrastina- 


44     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

tion  were  precisely  the  qualities  most  dangerous  to  a 
monarch  and  most  likely  to  be  fatal  to  his  people. 

We,  in  these  later  days,  inevitably  consider  James  I. 
and  VI.  from  what  we  know  of  his  history  on  the  English 
throne  ;  it  is  prosperity,  as  Bacon  says,  which  really  tries 
a  man  ;  but  the  James  who  was  known  to  the  Ehzabethans 
in  the  year  1601  was  almost  precisely  the  James  described 
above ;  there  is  not  a  single  trait  which  has  not  complete 
warrant  in  the  Scottish  historians  or  in  his  own  corres- 
pondence with  Ehzabeth.^ 

We  must  also  remember  the  fact  that  the  Scottish 
monarch  had  a  special  connection  with  Denmark  ;  his 
queen— Anne — was  a  princess  of  Denmark  ;  he  himself 
had  brought  her  home  in  a  romantic  vo5^age  ;  there  were 
Danes  resident  at  the  Scottish  court.  Moreover,  the 
murderer  of  James'  father,  the  elder  Both  well,  had  also 
taken  refuge  in  Denmark  and  had  ended  his  life  imprisoned 
there. 

This,  then,  was  the  political  situation  at  the  exact 
moment  Hamlet  was  written  :  the  whole  future  of  the 
realm  turned  on  the  question  of  the  succession  and  the 
character  of  the  future  monarch  ;  the  most  direct  heir  to 
the  realm  was  a  prince  who  was  melanchol}'  by  temp(na- 
ment,  whose  character  seemed  flawed  by  a  vacillating 
will  and  a  habit  of  procrastination  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
he  had  an  unexpected  capacity  for  acting  with  decision 
in  omtigcncies,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  dowry  con- 
spiracy ;  he  was  one  of  the  most  learned  princes  in 
Europe,  and  lie  took  an  intcnsi;  interest  in  philosoi)liy  and 

Ihooloj^y. 

'  See  espccJolh   Burton  ;in<i  I '  ■    k-  yriv.-i 


Richard  II.  and  Hamlet  45 

His  whole  situation  was  tragic  and  difficult  :  his  father 
had  been  murdered,  and  his  mother  had  married  the 
murderer  ;  to  the  amazement  of  Europe  he  had  allowed 
his  royal  authority  to  be  usurped  and  his  own  person 
placed  in  jeopardy  by  a  man  of  the  same  title  and  family 
as  the  usurper,  a  person  who,  to  the  excited  imagination 
of  the  time,  seemed  almost  like  a  reincarnation  of  the 
•^ame  evil  genius  who  had  ruined  the  mother. 

Let  us  now  examine  carefully  the  connection  of 
Shakespeare's  friends  and  patrons  wath  the  Scottish 
prince.  The  nation,  taken  as  a  whole,  seems  to  have 
profoundly  mistrusted  the  Cecils,  and  Essex  made  himself 
the  mouthpiece  of  this  mistrust.  It  was  known  how 
completely  Elizabeth  trusted  Burleigh  and  how  great 
her  confidence  was  ;  but  the  Essex  faction  accused  him 
of  tlishonest  diplomacy,  of  sp3nng,  of  eavesdropping, 
of  "  laying  trains  to  entrap  people  "  and  many  other 
objectionable  practices.  After  the  death  of  Burleigh 
Robert  Cecil  succeeded,  and  more  than  succeeded,  to  his 
father's  ill-repute.  One  group  of  his  enemies  accused 
him  of  designing  to  marry  the  Lady  Arabella  Stuart, 
and  seize  the  crown  for  himself  in  her  name  ;  E'^sex, 
at  his  trial,  declared  that  Robert  Cecil  was  in  collusion 
with  the  Spaniards  and  wished  to  deliver  the  crown  to 
the  Spanish  Lifanta ;  it  is  quite  possible  that  Essex 
sincerely  beheved  this,  and  that  it  was  one  of  the  motives 
fnr  liis  action — at  any  rate,  he  <^aid  so  upon  his 
oath. 

Tt  is  i>bvious  that  the  Essex  conspiracy  was  aimed 
('si)ecially  at  Raleigh  and  Rolx-rt  Cecil,  and  was  essentially 
an  endeavour  to  take   the  ([ueen   from   their  influence. 


V 


46     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

With  the  details  of  this  conspiracy,  in  so  far  as  they  affect 
Shakespeare,  I  uill  deal  later.  Here  I  only  wish  to  point 
out  that  Shakespeare  himself  had  a  double  connection 
with  it,  once  through  his  company  and  once  through 
his  friend  and  patron — Southampton. 

The  Essex  conspirators  had,  as  we  have  seen,  requested 
Shakespeare's  company  to  perform  the  play  of  Richard  II., 
since,  because  it  dealt  with  the  deposition  of  a  monarch, 
it  was  supposed  to  have  a  definite  bearing  on  their 
case. 

The  attempt  on  the  queen's  person  was  made  and 
failed ;  Essex,  the  brilliant  idol  of  the  populace,  was 
tried  and  executed  ;  Southampton,  Shakespeare's  patron 
and  friend,  was  condemned  to  death,  though  afterwards 
reprieved,  and  at  the  time  Hamlet  was  written  he  was 
still  in  the  Tower. 

Shakespeare's  company,  as  we  have  seen,  were  practically 
disgraced  because  of  their  sympathy?  with  Essex.  So 
general  was  this  sympathy  and  so  determined  were  the 
players  to  make  capital  of  it  on  the  stage,  that  for  several 
years  after  the  Essex  conspiracy  no  plays  dealing  with 
any  conspiracy  were  allowed  at  all,  the  authorities  being 
firmly  convinced  that  any  conspiracy  play,  whatever  its 
ostensible  subject,  would  really  allude  to  Essex. 

Now,  in  addition  to  these  reasons — the  popular  S5'mpathy 
with  Essex,  his  own  company's  marked  connection — 
Shakespeare  had  reasons  of  his  own  for  taking  the  greatest 
interest  in  the  Essex  conspiracy.  Southampton  was 
certainly  Shakespeare's  most  generous  patron ;  if,  as 
seems  plausible,  he  was  also  the  hero  of  the  sonnets,  he 
was   Shakespeare's   best-beloved   friend.     As   the   result 


Richard  II.  and  Hamlet  47 

of  his  connection  with  that  conspiracy  he  was  under 
sentence  of  death  ;  he  was  reprieved  for  the  time  being  ; 
but,  any  day,  the  intrigues  of  Robert  Cecil  and  his 
faction  might  destroy  him. 

Such    was    the    exact    situation    when    Shakespeare's 
Hamlet  was  produced. 


CHAPTER  II 

HAMLET  AND  THE   DARNLEY  MURDER 

The  subject  of  Hamlet  was  sufficiently  well  known  before 
Shakespeare  treated  of  it.  It  is  told  in  the  Historia 
Danica  of  Saxo  Grammaticus,  who  wrote  about  1180- 
1208.  It  appeared  translated  into  French  in  Belief orest's 
Hisioires  Tragiques  in  1570.  There  is  an  English  prose 
version,  The  Hystorie  of  Hamhlet,  which  dates  from  1608 
and  is  thus  certainly  later  in  date  than  the  play,  though 
possibly  there  were  earlier  versions  which  have  been 
lost. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  play  on  the  subject  existed 
as  early  as  1589,  for  Nash  makes  a  plain  reference  to  it  in 
his  preface  to  Greene's  Menaphon  (1587  or  1589),  and 
Lodge  in  his  Wifs  Miser ie  alludes  to  a  ghost  which  cried 
like  an  oyster- wife,  "  Hamlet,  revenge  "  :  a  play  of  Hamlet 
was  also  performed  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company 
in  1594.  There  is  a  general  consensus  of  opinion  that 
this  early  Hamlet  cannot  have  been  by  Shakespeare, 
since  Meres  does  not  refer  to  it  in  his  famous  list  given 
in  the  Palladis  Tamia  of  1598. 

The  general  consensus  of  opinion  is  that  this  early 
drama  was  probably  by  Kyd, 

Since  Kyd's  play  has  disappeared,  it  is  totally  im- 
possible to  ascertain  whether  he  did  or  did  not  use  historical 
material  as  an  element  in  that  drama  though,  so  far  as 

48 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder         49 

concerns  any  material  existing  previous  to  1589,  he  may 
quite  well  have  done  so,  and  I  would  call  the  reader's 
attention  very  carefully  to  the  fact,  for  it  may  be  signifi- 
cant, that  the  only  historical  parallels  I  find  to  known 
elements  in  the  earlier  Hamlet  are  all,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
anterior  to  this  date.  My  method  will  be  to  compare 
the  play  with  the  Amleth  story  on  the  one  side  and  the 
historical  details  on  the  other,  and  to  show  that  the 
action  of  the  play  far  more  closely  agrees  with  that  of 
history  than  with  that  of  the  saga,  and  also  that  the 
main  problems  of  the  play  are  not  the  problems  of  the 
saga  but  are  certainly  those  of  the  history. 

In  Shakespeare's  drama  the  queen  is  called  Gertrude  ; 
her  first  husband  is  Hamlet,  like  his  son,  and  the  murderous 
usurper  is  Claudius.  In  the  saga,  the  queen  is  Geruth, 
her  first  husband  is  Horvendil,  and  his  brother,  who  slays 
him,  is  Feng. 

What    the  saga  sa37S  concerning    the    murder    is    the 

following  : 

"  Such  great  good  fortune  stung  Feng  with  jealousy  so 
that  he  resolved  treacherously  to  waylay  his  brother — thus 
showing  that  goodness  is  not  safe  even  from  those  of  a  man's 
own  household.  And  behold,  when  a  chance  came  to  murder 
him,  his  bloody  hand  sated  even  the  deadly  passion  of  his 
soul.  Then  he  took  the  wife  of  the  brother  he  had  butchered, 
capping  unnatural  murder  with  incest." 

Feng  admits  his  brother's  murder  to  the  people  ;  but 
he  invents  a  justification  for  his  deed  by  saying  that 
his  brother  had  planned  the  murder  of  the  queen — 
Gertrude.  There  was  thus  nothing  secret  about  the 
murder  which  took  place  publicly,  and  which  was  ac- 
knowledged before  the  whole  court.     The  prose  Hyatorie 


50     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

oj  Hamhlet  gives  exactly  the  same  version  as  Saxo 
Grammaticus  ;  it  tells  how  the  adulterer  murdered  his 
brother  at  a  banquet,  and  then  slandered  the  dead  man 
by  saying  that  he  would  have  slain  his  wife ;  "so, 
instead  of  pursuing  him  as  a  parricide  and  an  incestuous 
person,  all  the  courtiers  admired  and  flattered  him  in  his 
good  fortune." 

We  may  now  turn  to  Shakespeare  and  note  how  dose 
are  the  known  parallels  to  the  history  of  James  I. — ^the 
identical  person  in  whom  both  Shakespeare  and  his 
audience  had,  at  that  moment,  reason  to  take  such  a 
profound  interest. 

To  begin  with,  the  device  of  having  the  murder  told 
by  a  ghost  has  no  parallel  whatever  in  the  saga  source 
(there  would  be  no  motive  for  it) ;  but  it  had  a  parallel 
in  the  Darnley  murder  for  the  Scottish  ballad-makers 
had  already  hit  on  exactly  that  device.  Thus,  in  Edin- 
burgh, 1567,  there  was  published  a  ballad  entitled  The 
Testament  and  Tragedie  oj  the  umquhile  King  Henrie  Stuart, 
of  gude  memorie. 

In  it,  the  unhappy  ghost  of  the  murdered  king  returns 
and  laments : 

"  Sum  tyme  scho  ^  thocht  I  was  sa  amiabill, 
Sa  perfect,  plesand,  and  sa  delectabill ; 
.  .  .  she  luid  me  by  all  wycht ; 
Sum  tyme,  to  show  affectioun  lavourabill, 
Gratifeit  me  with  giftis  honorabill ; 

Sum  tyme  in  mynde  she  praisit  me  sa  hycht 
Leifand  all  uther  ;  hit  bedfellow  brycht 
Chesit  me  to  be  and  maid  me  your  king." 

»  i.e.  Mary. 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder         51 

Then,  further,  the  murder  in  the  saga  takes  place,  as 
we  have  seen,  in  an  open  and  obvious  way,  and  is  fully 
acknowledged. 

In   Shakespeare   the   ghost   explains   that   his   murder 

is  secret  and  stealthy  ^ : 

"  Now,  Hamlet,  hear  : 
'Tis  given  out  that,  sleeping  in  my  orchard, 
A  serpent  stung  me  ;  so  the  whole  ear  of  Denmark 
Is  by  a  forged  process  of  my  death 
Rankly  abused  : 

.  .  .  Sleeping  within  my  orchard, 
My  custom  always  of  the  afternoon, 
Upon  my  secure  hour  thy  uncle  stole 
With  juice  of  cursed  hebenon  in  a  \ial, 
And  in  the  porches  of  my  ears  did  pour 
The  leporous  distilment ;  .  .  . 
And  a  most  instant  tetter  bark'd  about, 
Most  lazar-like,  with  vile  and  loathsome  crust, 
All  my  smooth  bodj'." 

Now,  the  father  of  James  1,  was  finally  murdered  by 
means  of,  or  at  least  concurrently  with,  a  gunpowder 
explosion ;  but  it  was  very  generally  believed  that  a 
previous  attempt  had  been  made  to  poison  him. 

Burton  -  says : 

"  Darnley  was  seized  with  a  sudden  and  acute  illness 
which  broke  out  cutaneously.  Poison  was  at  first  naturally 
suspected.  The  disease  was  speedily  pronounced  to  be 
small-pox  ;  but  it  has  been  conjectured  that  it  may  have 
been  one  of  those  forms  of  contamination  which  had  then 
begun  to  make  their  silent  and  mysterious  visitation  in  this 
country,  while  the  immediate  cause  by  which  they  were 
communicated  was  yet  unknown.  From  what  occurred 
afterwards  it  became  a  current  belief  that  he  had  been 
poisoned." 

'  Act  I.,  V.  »  History  of  Scotland,  Vol.  IV. 


52     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succesbion 

The  plot  for  his  destruction  with  gunpowder  was  next 
attempted  ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  perished  as 
a  result  of  the  explosion.     Burton  continues  : 

"  It  seems  that  the  intended  victim  with  his  page  .  .  . 
attempted  to  escape  and  even  got  over  a  wall  into  a  garden 
when  they  were  seized  and  strangled.  They  were  found 
without  any  marks  from  the  explosion  but  with  marks  of 
other  \'iolence." 

Now  here  we  surely  have  remarkable  correspondences 
with  the  Shakespearian  murder :  we  have  the  bod)/  of 
the  victim  covered  with  a  "  loathsome  tetter  "  which  is 
ascribed  to  the  malign  influence  of  poison  ;  we  have  the 
secret  character  of  the  murder  itself,  and  we  have  the 
body  of  the  victim  found  in  an  "  orchard." 

Let  us  once  again  compare  Shakespeare  with  a  source 
which  was  certainly  available  both  for  himself  and  for 
his  audience,  Buchanan's  Detection} 

"  Ere  he  was  passed  a  mile  from  Stirling  all  the  parts  of 
his  body  were  taken  with  such  a  sore  ache,  as  it  might  easily 
appear  that  the  same  proceeded  not  of  the  force  of  any  sickness 
but  by  plain  treachery.  The  tokens  of  which  treachery, 
certain  black  pimples,  so  soon  as  he  was  come  to  Glasgow, 
broke  out  all  over  his  whole  body  with  so  great  ache  and 
such  pain  throughout  his  limbs,  that  he  lingered  out  his  life 
with  very  small  hope  of  escape  ;  and  yet  all  this  while  the 
queen  would  not  suffer  so  much  as  a  physician  to  come 
near  him." 

Buchanan  dwells  on  the  same  theme  in  his  Oration,'^  also 
a  source  available  alike  to  Shakespeare  and  Shakespeare's 
audience,  and  probably  known  very  well  to  all  of  them  : 

"It  is  certainly  known  that  he  was  poisoned.  .  .  .     For 

^  Scotch  Version,  1572. 

'  Possibly  by  another  hand. 


Hamlet  and  the  Davnley  Murder  53 

though  the  Shame lessness  of  Men  would  not  stick  to  deny  a 
thing  so  manifest ;  yet  the  kind  of  Disease,  strange,  unknown 
to  the  People,  unacquainted  with  Physicians,  especially  such 
as  had  not  been  in  Italy  and  Spain,  black  Pimples  breaking 
out  all  over  his  body,  grievous  aches  in  all  his  limbs  and  in- 
tolerable stink  disclosed  it  —there  is  no  Adulteress  but  the 
same  is  also  a  Poisoner.  Read  her  own  Letter.  lie  is  not 
much  deformed  and  yet  he  hath  received  much.  Wliereof 
hath  he  received  much  ?  The  thing  itself,  the  Disease,  the 
Pimples,  the  Savor  do  tell  you.  Even  that  much  he  received 
that  brought  Deformity,  Forsooth,  very  Poison.  Wliatsoever 
it  was  that  he  received  the  i^ame,  the  same  was  the  Cause  of 
his  Deformity. 

"...  She  will  have  the  manner  of  ministring  the  Medicine 
to  be  secret.  If  it  be  to  heal  him  what  needs  that  secrecy  ? 
...  To  whom  is  this  Charge  committed  to  seek  out  a  new 
Medicine  and  curing  for  the  King  ?  Forsooth  to  the  King's 
Enemy,  to  the  Queen's  adulterer,  the  vilest  of  all  two-footed 
beasts,  whose  house  was  in  France  defamed  for  poisoning 
and  whose  Servants  were  there  for  the  same  cause,  some 
tortured,  some  imprisoned,  and  all  suspected.  .  .  . 

"So  forsooth  an  ^Tedicines  accustomed  to  be  provided  by 
Enemies,  in  a  secret  Place,  without  Witnesses.  That  there- 
fore which  an  Adulterer  and  Adulteress,  and  the  partner  of 
the  Wife's  Body,  <  uriously  prepireth  and  secretly  admini- 
stroth  ;  what  Medicine  this  is,  lit  every  Man  with  himself 
wei^h  :^nd  consider." 


'O' 


We  see  here  the  immense  stress  which  Buchanan  lays 
on  the  secrecy  of  the  murder,  on  the  soHtude  of  the 
nnhappy  victim  at  the  time  tlie  poisoning  took  place, 
on  ihe  foulness  produced  in  hi?  body,  the  deformity,  the 
pustules,  etc.,  nil  of  which  agree  closely  with  the  murder 
of  Hamlet's  father,  and,  uhat  is  especially  -^ignif;' ant, 
not  one  of  lliese  details  is  lo  be  found  in  either  of  (he 
prose  versions.  Tn  the  so-called  literary  souire,  tlie 
murder  is  )ioi  se<  ret,  the  victim  is  nol  alone,   roi-on  is 


54     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

not  used,  deformity  is  not  caused.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  the  very  term  the  ghost  uses  in  describing  his  con- 
dition, "  leprous,"  had  been  appHed  by  contemporary 
writers  to  Darnley. 

A  satirist  called  him  "the  leper,"  leprosy  being  con- 
founded with  "  la  grosse  verole."  ^ 

We  may  also  observe  that  Buchanan  insists  that  the 
method  of  poisoning  was  well  known  in  France  and  Italy, 
and  Hamlet  himself  compares  his  father's  death  to  the 
Italian  murder  of  Gonzago. 

Buchanan  says :  "  There  is  no  adulteress  but  the  same 
is  also  a  poisoner,"  and  Hamlet  has :  "  None  wed  the 
second  but  who  killed  the  first."  ^ 

We  may  compare  also  Buchanan's  own  satire  appended 
to  his  Latin  version  : 

"  Et  quern  non  potuit  morientem  auferre  veneno 
Hunc  fera,  sulphureo  pulvere  toUit  humo, 

•  •••••  • 

Nobilis  ille  tuas  vires  Damleuis  heros 
pertulit,  heu  tristes  pertulit  ille  faces. 

Siccine  Bothwellum  poteras  sine  lege  tenere  ? 
Siccine  Bothwelli  poterant  te  flcctere  verba." 

This,  again,  has  a  close  resemblance  to  the  ghost's 
lament : 

"  Ay,  tliat  incestuous,  that  adulterate  beast. 
With  witchcraft  of  his  wit. 
O  wicked  wit  and  gifts  that  have  the  power 
So  to  seduce." 

Buchanan  terms  Bothwdl  "an  adulterer,"   and   "the 
*  AmlccvY  T  ,ing,  Mystery  of  Mary  Stuart.  *  Act  III.,  ii. 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder         55 

\alest  of  all  two-legged  beasts,"  who  has  power  to  bend 
the  queen  with  his  words,  and  Shakespeare  uses  almost 
the  same  phrases. 

Another  curious  detail  of  the  murder  may  be  observed 
here.  The  ghost  declares  that  he  was  murdered  by 
poison — ^henbane — poured  in  his  ear  while  he  slept. 
Now,  Mary's  accusers,^  to  heap  calumny  upon  her,  had 
accused  her  of  conniving  also  at  the  murder  of  her 
first  husband — Francis  II.  of  France.  That  unhappy 
prince  died  from  an  abscess  in  the  ear,  but  it  was  a 
common  rumour  that  it  was  caused  by  poison  inserted 
in  the  ear. 

Now,  does  it  not  look  as  if  Shakespeare  were  combining 
in  one  most  powerful  and  dramatic  scene  these  three 
attempts  all  associated  with  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  :  the 
poison  in  the  ear  from  the  reputed  murder  of  Francis  II., 
the  loathsomeness  and  vileness  of  the  unhappy  victim 
from  the  first  attempt  on  Darnley,  and  the  body  of  the 
victim  found  in  the  garden  with  the  actual  murder  of 
Darnley  ?  WTiy  not  ?  All  these  three  attempts  had 
already  been  associated  together,  one  strengthening 
another,  by  the  queen's  accusers,^  and  a  dramatic  poet 
very  naturally  desires  to  make  his  play  as  intense  and 
moving  as  he  can.  The  association,  like  the  Darnley 
ghost,  is  already  there.     Why  not  use  it  ? 

There  is,  however,  one  important  modification.  At  the 
time  when  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  was  executed,  she  was 
regarded  by  the  people  of  England  with  embittered  hate, 
and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  every  word  of  Buchanan's 

'  See  Leslie,  Bishop  of  Ross  {Hatfield  Papers). 
*  See  Leslie,  Bishop  of  Ross. 


56     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

terrific  indictment  was  regarded  as  true.  James  had, 
however,  a  certain  respect  for  the  memory  of  his 
mother,  and  it  is  probable  that  anyone  who  desired 
to  please  him  might  be  inclined  to  take  a  lenient  view 
of  Mary's  connection  with  the  crime.  It  has  been 
possible  even  for  modern  historians  to  deny  altogether 
or  in  part  her  connection  with  it,  and  her  apologists  of 
course  (like  Belleforest)  did  so  in  Shakespeare's  own  time. 

Now,  this  is  very  much  what  happens  in  Hamlet.  In 
the  saga  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  the  queen's 
guilt ;  she  has  not  only  committed  adultery,  she  has 
connived  at  the  murder,  and  acquiesced  in  the  false 
statement  invented  to  justify  the  deed.  In  Shakespeare, 
on  the  contrary,  we  have  the  subtlety  and  complexity 
of  the  history — nothing  whatever  is  said  to  make  it  plain 
that  the  queen  has  knowingly  acquiesced  in  her  husband's 
murder.  She  may  have  done ;  but  though  the  ghost 
accuses  her  of  adultery  he  does  not  say  that  she  connived 
at  the  other  crime.  His  attitude  towards  her  is  always 
tender  and  indulgent,  and  Darnley,  we  may  remember, 
to  the  last  day  of  his  recorded  life  sought  the  love  of 
Mary,  and  pathetically  believed  in  the  possibility  of  a 
reconciliation  with  her.  That  is  half  the  pathos  of 
Darnley's  fate,  and  it  is  certainly  half  the  pathos  of 
Shakespeare's  ghost  that  he  continues  to  love  his  erring 
wife  in  spite  of  all. 

As  a  reference  to  Buchanan  will  at  once  show,  he  lays 
enormous  stress  on  the  undiminished  affection  of  the 
unhappy  victim  which  survived  even  the  attempt  to 
poison  him.     "  Why,"  asks  Buchanan,^  "  did  she  thrust 

^  Oration. 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder         57 

away  from  her  the  young  Gentleman  ...  he  being 
beautiful,  near  of  her  kin,  of  the  Blood  Royal  and  (that 
which  is  greatest),  most  entirely  loving  her." 

Again,  both  the  ghost  and  Hamlet  call  attention  to 
the  fickleness  of  the  queen.  The  ghost  claims  that  he 
won  her  swiftly  :  he  says  his  love 

"  was  of  that  dignity 
That  it  went  hand  in  hand  even  with  the  vow 
I  made  to  her  in  marriage." 

This,  again,  looks  as  if  it  were  suggested  by  the  rapid 
maixiage  of  Mary  and  Darnley  after  a  brief  acquaint- 
ance. 

Again,   even   before  he  has  seen  the  ghost,   Hamlet 

dwells  on  the  fact  that  his  mother  used  to  show  such 

an  intense  affection  for  his  father  ;    but  forgot  him  so 

soon  and    declined   upon    one  whose  gifts  were  so  far 

inferior. 

"  Heaven  and  earth  1 
Must  I  remember  ?  why,  she  would  hang  on  him, 
As  if  increase  of  appetite  had  grown 
By  what  it  fed  on  :  and  yet,  vnth  a  month — 
.   .  .  married  with  my  uncle, 
My  father's  brother,  but  no  more  like  my  father 
Than  I  to  Hercules  .  .  . 

O  most  wicked  speed,  to  post, 
With  such  dexterity  to  incestuous  sheets."  * 

Now,  this  is  precisely  one  of  Buchanan's  chief  indict- 
ments against  Mary,  that  she  so  vehemently  loved  her 
first  husband,  but  so  rapidly  forgot  him  and  married  the 
second  who  was  so  immeasurably  his  inferior  in  person 
and  charm. 

1  Act  I.,  u. 


58     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

These  are  some  of  the  most  apposite  passages  : 

"  What  if  I  ask  again  why  she  so  extremely  loved  the  young 
Man  ?  why  she  so  hastily  married  him  and  so  unmeasur- 
able  honoured  him  ?  Such  are  the  natures  of  some 
women. 

"That  husband  therefore  whom  she  lately  wedded  .  .  . 
without  whom  she  could  not  endure,  whom  she  scarcely 
durst  suffer  out  of  her  sight,  him  she  thrust  forth." 

"...  that  adulterous  partner,  neither  in  birth  nor  in 
beauty  nor  in  any  honest  quality  was  in  any  wise  comparable 
with  her  disdained  husband." 

"  Bothwell  was  an  Ape  in  purple." 

"  Neither  is  the  cause  unknown  why  she  did  it.  Even 
that  the  same  filthy  marriage  with  Bothwell  might  be 
accomplished." 

"  One  is  divorced,  another  is  coupled,  and  that  in  such 
posting  speed,  as  they  might  have  scant  have  hasted  to 
furnish  any  triumph  of  some  noble  victory."  ^ 

Here,  again,  we  have  phrases  which  closely  resemble 
Shakespeare's  "  posting  to  incestuous  sheets." 

Both  Hamlet  and  the  ghost  lay  enormous  stress  on  this 
indecent  haste,  and  on  the  contrast  between  the  two 
husbands : 

"  A  little  mouth,  or  ere  those  shoes  were  old 
With  which  she  follow'd  my  poor  lather's  body. 
Like  Niobe,  all  tears  : — why  .she,  even  she, — 
O  God  !  a  beast  that  wants  discourse  of  reason 
Would  have  mourned  longer  .  .  . 
within  a  month 
Ere  yet  the  salt  of  most  unrighteous  tears 
Had  left  the  flushing  in  her  galled  eyes." 

We  may  obser\'e  also  that  this  hasty  marriage  was 
held  from  the  beginning  to  affect  closely  James  himself. 

'  Otation.    Scotch  version. 


Hamlet  and  the  Damley  Murder         59 

Burton  quotes  from  the  memoirs  of  Sir  James  Melville : 

"  every  good  subject  that  loved  the  queen's  honour  aiul 
the  prince's  security  had  sad  hearts  and  thought  her  majesty- 
would  be  dishonoured  and  the  prince  in  danger  to  be  cut  off 
by  him  who  had  slain  his  father." 

Now  here,  again,  we  have  the  atmosphere  of  Hamlet: 
the  queen's  disgraceful  haste,  the  secrecy  and  suspicion  and 
the  peril  of  her  son. 

Buchanan  says  ^ : 

"  When  of  the  foiiy  days  appointed  for  the  mourning,  scarce 
twelve  were  yet  fully  past  .  .  .  taking  heart  of  grace  unto 
her,  and  neglecting  such  trifles,  she  cometh  to  her  own  bias, 
and  openly  sheweth  her  own  natural  conditions." 

Buchanan  dwells  on  the  fact  that  before  the  marriage, 
Bothwell  was  accused  of  having  committed  fornication 
with  his  wife's  owni  kinswoman  .  .  .  and  the  divorce 
with  Lady  Jane  Bothwell  was  "  posted  forward." 

"  And  so  at  length  within  the  eight  days  (from  the  time  of 
the  divorce  commenced),  she  finished  that  unmatrimonial 
matrimony,  all  good  men  so  far  detesting  or  at  least  grudgingly 
forejudging  the  unlucky  end  thereof. 

"  .  .  .  but  Monsieur  de  Croce  though  he  was  earnestly  desired 
could  not  with  his  honour  be  present  at  the  feast." 

Buchanan  makes  out  Bothwell  to  be  a  kind  of  specialist 
in  adultery  :  "  Bothwell  had  then  alive  two  wives  already, 
not  yet  divorced  and  the  third  neither  lawfully  married 
nor  orderly  divorced." 

"  The  deed,"  says  Buchanan,  "  of  itself  is  odious  in  a 
woman,  it  is  monstrous  in  a  wife,  not  only  excessively  loved 
but  also   most  zealously  honoured,   it  is  incredible.     And 


*■  Dttection. 


6o     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

being  committed  against  him  .  .  .  whose  affection  requires 
love  .  .  .  upon  that  young  man  in  whom  there  is  not  so 
much  as  alleged  any  just  cause  of  offence." 

Here,  again,  we  may  remember  what  Hamlet  says  of 
his  father's  affection  for  his  mother  : 

"  he  might  not  beteem  the  winds  of  heaven 
Visit  her  face  too  roughly." 

Throughout  Shakespeare's  drama  enormous  stress  is 
laid  on  the  difference  in  character  and  appearance  between 
the  two  husbands.  Now  almost  all  the  contemporary 
records  stress  this  difference  in  the  case  of  Damley  and 
Bothwell. 

"  He  {i.e.  Damley)  was  a  comely  Prince  of  a  fair  and  large 
stature  of  body,  pleasant  in  countenance,  affable  to  all  men 
and  devout,  well-exercised  in  martial  pastimes  upon  horse- 
back as  any  prince  of  that  age."  ' 

Compare  Horatio's  address  to  the  ghost,^ 

"  What  art  thou  that  usurp'st  this  time  of  night. 
Together  with  that  fair  and  warlike  form 
In  which  the  majesty  of  buried  Denmark 
Did  sometimes  march  ?  " 

And  also  the  description  of  Marcellus  : 

"  With  martial  stalk  hath  he  gone  by  our  watch." 

In  1566  de  Silva  learned   from  MauvissiSre  that   he 

(Damley)  mostly  passed  his  time  in  warlike  exercises, 

and  was  a  good  horseman.    Causin  speaks  of  him  as 

"  being    accomplished    with    all    excellent    endowments 

both  of  body  and  of  mind."  ^ 

^  Historic  of  James  the  Sixt.  *  Act  I.,  i. 

'  Quoted  by  Hay  Fleming. 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder         6i 

Knox's  continual  or  thus  describes  him  :  "He  was  of  a 
comely  stature  and  none  was  like  unto  him  within  this 
island." 

Buchanan  says  in  his  Detection  (of  Mary) :  "  She  long 
beheld  .  .  .  with  greedy  eyes  his  dead  corpse,  the 
goodliest  corpse  of  any  gentleman  that  ever  lived  in  this 
age. 

Compare  this  with  Horatio's  speech  :  ^ 

"  I  saw  him  once  ;   he  was  a  goodly  king," 

and  Hamlet's  reply : 

"  He  was  a  man,  take  him  for  all  in  all, 
I  shall  not  look  upon  his  like  again." 

Again  we  note  as  somewhat  curious  the  immense  stress 
that  is  laid  upon  the  armour  of  the  ghost ;  it  makes  him 
more  dignified  and  more  warhke.  So,  also,  Darnley 
had  a  fancy  for  appearing  in  full  armour  which  some 
persons  thought  an  affectation,  and  which  his  enemies 
ridiculed  ;  thus  in  1565  he  appeared  in  full  armour  at 
Mary's  side  in  their  brief  war  against  the  Lords  of  the 
Congregation ;  it  was,  in  that  age  at  any  rate,  a  real 
pecuharity. 

Bothwell,  on  the  other  hand,  is  persistently  described 
by  Buchanan  and  others  as  a  needy  adventurer,  given  to 
vices  of  a  low  cast :  drunkenness  and  licentiousness. 

Buchanan  says  : 

"  What  was  there  in  him  Bothwell  that  was  of  a  woman 
of  any  honest  countenance  to  be  desired,  was  there  any 
gift  of  eloquence  or  grace  of  beauty  or  virtue  of  mynd.  .  .  . 

1  Act  I.,  u. 


62     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

As  for  his  eloquence  we  need  not  speak  .  .  .  they  that 
have  heard  him  are  not  ignorant  of  his  rude  utterance 
and  blockishness  .  .  .  his  enemies  face  he  never  durst 
abide  ...  by  a  thief,  a  notable  coward,  he  was  deadly 
wounded  and  thrown  to  the  ground.  .  .  .  He  was  brought 
up  in  the  Bishop  of  Murray's  palace  ...  in  drunkenness 
and  whoredoms,  among  vile  ministries  of  dissolute  mis- 
order.  .  ,  .  Bothwell  was  a  man  in  extreme  poverty,  doubtful 
whether  he  were  more  vile  or  more  wicked.  ...  As  for 
excessive  and  immoderate  use  of  lecheiy,  he  therein  no  less 
sought  to  be  famous  than  other  men  do  shun  dishonour  and 
infamy." 

We  have  thus  in  Bothwell  exactly  the  same  type  of 
character  as  that  depicted  in  Claudius  :  Hamlet  alludes 
with  emphatic  disgust  to  the  heavy  drinking  of  the  king, 
he  dwells  on  his  licentiousness  and  points  the  bitter 
contrast  between  Claudius  and  his  brother,  exactly  as 
Buchanan  points  the  contrast  between  the  hideousness 
and  licentiousness  of  Bothwell  and  the  beauty  and  state- 
liness  of  Darnley  (Acts  III.-IV.). 

"  See,  what  a  grace  was  seated  on  this  brow ; 
Hyperion's  curls,  the  front  of  Jove  himself,  .  .  . 
This  was  your  husband.     Look  you  now,  what 

follows  ; 
Here  is  your  husband  ;  like  a  mildewed  ear 
Blasting  his  wholesome  brother.  .  .  . 

Ha  !    have  you  eyes  ? 
You  cannot  call  it  love." 

So  Buchanan  insists  that  the  passion  of  Mary  for 
Bothwell  cannot  properly  have  been  called  love,  but  only 
that  insensate  rage  of  lust  which  sometimes  seizes  upon 
women  and  bhnds  them  to  all  that  is  base  in  character 
and  hideous  in  person. 


Hamlet  and  the  Damley  Murder         63 

Hamlet  accuses  Claudius  ^  of  exactly  the  vices  condemned 
in  Bothwell :  he  speaks  of  killing  him 

"  When  he  is  drunk  asleep,  or  in  his  rage 
Or  in  the  incestuous  pleasure  of  his  bed, 
At  gaming,  swearing  or  about  some  act 
That  has  no  relish  of  salvation  in't." 

His  drunkenness,  of  course,  and  its  corrupting  effect 
on  the  court  is  insisted  on  from  the  very  beginning  ^ : 
Hamlet  says  to  Horatio  : 

"  what  is  your  affair  in  Elsinore  ? 
We'll  teach  you  to  drink  deep  ere  you  depart." 

Bothwell's  enemies  had  accused  him  of  practising  art 
magic,  and  both  Mary's  friends  and  enemies,  including 
the  hostile  lords  in  their  proclamations,  averred  that 
Bothw.ll  had  won  her  favour  by  unlawful  means,  philtres, 
witchcraft,  or  what  we  may  call  hypnotism. 

Shakespeare  does  not  represent  Hamlet  as  accusing 
Claudius  of  the  Black  Art,  but  he  may  be  referring  to 
these  accusations  when  he  makes  the  ghost  accuse  him 
of  seducing  the  queen  "  with  witchcraft  of  his  wicked 
wit." 

I  have  already  pointed  out,^  that  in  Hamlet  the 
ghost  is  a  Catholic,  whereas  his  son  is  a  Protestant, 
and  this  is  another  matter  in  which  the  play  differs 
totally  from  the  saga  and  corresponds  closely  with  the 
history. 

Horatio,  in  the  opening  of  the  play,^  has  just  come 

'Actlll,  Ui.  ^Actl.,  ii. 

»  Iiilrotluction.  *  Act  I.,  ii. 


y 


64     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

from  Wittenberg,  and  Hamlet  greets  him  as  his  "  fellow- 
student  "  ;  Hamlet  also  desires  to  return  to  Wittenberg, 
which  Claudius  does  not  wish  to  permit. 

"  For  your  intent 
In  going  back  to  school  in  Wittenberg 
It  is  most  retrograde  to  our  desire."  ' 

Nothing,  of  course,  is  said  of  any  Wittenberg  in  the 
saga,  and  I  am  positive  that  any  reader  who  cares  to 
refer  to  Saxo  Grammaticus  will  feel  that  the  mention  of 
any  modern  university  would  be  singularly  out  of  place 
in  that  barbarous  production. 

But  Wittenberg,  on  account  of  its  association  with 
Luther,  was  famous  as  one  of  the  chief  Protestant  centres 
of  Europe ;  Scottish  universities,  as  already  pointed 
out,  had  in  the  sixteenth  century  a  very  close  and  intimate 
connection  with  German  Protestant  universities,  and  thus 
the  mention  of  Wittenberg  certainly  suggests  a  Protestant 
connection  for  both  Horatio  and  Hamlet, 

It  is  equally  clear  that  the  ghost  is  Catholic.  He  speaks 
of  purgatory,  and  of  himself  as  being  condemned  to  its 
penalties  ^  : 

"  Doom'd  for  a  certain  time  to  walk  the  night, 
And  for  the  day  confined  to  fast  in  fires, 
Till  the  foul  crimes  done  in  my  days  of  nature 
Are  burnt  and  purged  away  :  " 

The  ghost,  be  it  noted,  lays  no  claim  to  entire  innocence 
of  life  ;  he  admits  "  foul  crimes."  In  the  whole  cruel  and 
bitter  story  of  his  murder  the  thing  that  grieves  him 

1  Act  I.,  ii.  '  Act  I.,  V. 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder       65 

most  is  that  he  had  no  opportunity  for  absolution  and 
extreme  unction. 

"  Cut  off  even  in  the  blossoms  of  my  sin, 
Unhousel'd,  disappointed,  unaneled. 
No  reckoning  made,  but  sent  to  my  account 
With  all  my  imperfections  on  my  head ; 
O  horrible  !    O  horrible  !    most  horrible  !  " 

Now  here,  again,  we  have  an  exact  parallel  with  the 
history  ;  Darnley  was  a  Catholic,  he  had  committed 
"  foul  crimes,"  and  he  was  cut  off  wdthout  the  possibility 
of  absolution  and  extreme  unction.  The  son,  James  I., 
was  a  Protestant  and  a  very  keen  and  eager  student,  a 
fact  on  which  he  greatly  plumed  himself,  of  Protestant 
theology. 

In  the  saga  story  there  is,  of  course,  no  ghost.  Its 
function  would,  indeed,  be  totally  unnecessary  as 
neither  Amleth  nor  anyone  else  has  the  least  doubt 
as  to  the  guilt  of  the  king,  who,  as  we  have  seen, 
acknowledged  it. 

In  the  history,  however,  the  guilt  of  the  culprits  certainly 
was  doubtful  ;  Bothwell  seized  the  supreme  power ; 
he  was  not  at  first  openly  accused,  but  suspicions  were 
rife  against  him.  Burton  says  :  "  Those  who  dared  not 
speak  openly  gave  utterance  in  the  dark,  and  midnight 
accusations  were  heard  with  mysterious  awe.  Sir  WiUiam 
Drury  tells  Cecil  of  a  man  who  went  about  crying : 
'  Vengeance  on  those  who  .  .  .  caused  the  shedding  of 
innocent  blood,  O  Lord  !  open  the  heavens  and  pour 
down  vengeance.'  "  ^ 

*  History  of  Scotland. 


66     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Buchanan  alludes  to  the  same  thing  :  people  dared  not 
openly  accuse  Bothwell  of  the  offence, 

"  specially  as  he  himself  was  doer,  judge,  enquirer  and 
examiner.  Yet  this  fear  which  stopped  the  mouths  of  every 
man  in  particular  could  not  restrain  the  multitude.  Because 
both  b}'  books  set  out,  by  pictures  and  by  cries  in  the  dark 
night,  it  was  so  set  out  and  handled  that  the  doers  of  the 
mischievous  fact  might  easily  understand  that  those  secrets 
of  theirs  were  come  abroad." 

Buchanan  has  also  a  curious  tale  of  an  apparition 
which  came  to  the  Earl  of  Athol  and  three  of  his 
friends  on  the  night  of  the  Darnley  murder,  wakened 
them  out  of  their  sleep,  and  apprised  them  of  the  crime. 

As  we  have  also  seen,  there  was  a  contemporary  ballad 
which  represented  the  ghost  of  Darnley  as  returning  to 
tell  his  own  pitiful  tale. 

In  the  original  prose  story  there  was  no  voice  crying 
out  murder  in  the  night  and  no  apparition ;  Shakespeare 
seems  to  have  put  them  together,  and  dramatised  them 
into  the  truly  magnificent  conception  of  the  ghost  of 
Hamlet's  father. 

There  was  certainly  a  ghost  in  the  earlier  Hamlet 
— the  play  ascribed  to  Kyd — but,  as  I  have  already 
remarked,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  whether  Kyd 
was  using  historical  sources  or  not. 

Other  curious  details  in  the  ghost-scene  are  worthy  of 
comment.  Thus  the  ghost  teUs  Hamlet  that  it  is  com- 
pelled to  depart ;  but,  when  Hamlet  exacts  the  oath  of 
silence  from  Horatio  and  the  soldiers,  the  ghost  reappears 
in  the  most  extraordinary'  way  beneath  the  ground,  so  that 
Hamlet  refers  to  him  as  "  this  fellow  in  the  cellarage  " 
and  caUs  him  "  an  old  mole," 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder       67 

Now  it  was  the  murder  of  Rizzio  which  steeled  Mary's 
heart  against  her  husband,  and  it  was  very  generally 
believed  that  Mary  took  an  oath  to  murder  him  over 
Rizzio's  grave.  The  Lennox  MSS.  are  the  main  authorities 
for  this  incident ;  they  aver  that,  when  Darnley  and 
Mary  were  escaping  together  through  the  vaults  of 
Holyrood,  Darnley  paused  and  uttered  remorseful  words 
over  Rizzio's  new-made  grave  ;  they  aver  that  Mary, 
seeing  the  grave,  said  "  it  should  go  very  hard  with  her 
but  a  fatter  than  Rizzio  should  he  anear  him  ere  one 
twelvemonth  was  at  an  end."  Moreover,  on  the  evening 
preceding  Damley's  death,  Mary  is  said  to  have  reminded 
him  of  this  very  incident : 

"  Rizzio,"  says  Mr  Andrew  Lang,  "  was  buried  in  the  chapel 
vaults.  In  their  escape  Mar^'  and  Darnley  passed  by  his 
grave  ;  she  is  said  to  have  declared  that  '  ere  a  year  he  should 
have  a  fatter  by  his  side  ! '  On  the  evening  preceding  Damley's 
death  she  reminded  him  that  it  was  a  year  since  Rizzio's 
murder."  ^ 

Martin  Hume  speaks  of  the  pretended  reconciliation 
of  the  husband  and  wife  : 

"  In  the  course  of  their  lo\dng  talk  Mary  dropped  a  sinister 
hint  that  just  a  year  had  passed  since  Rizzio's  murder  ; 
and,  when  she  had  gone,  Darnley  in  the  hearing  of  his  pages, 
expressed  his  uneasiness  that  she  had  recollected  it,  for  he  at 
least  had  not  forgotten  her  threat  over  Rizzio's  grave."  ^ 

Buchanan  ^  says  : 

"  One  Sunday  night  she  discovered  herself,  and  fetching  a 
deep  sigh  :    '  O  says  she,  this  time  twelve  month  was  David 

1  Mystery  of  Mary  Stuart. 
'  Love  Affairs  of  Mary  Stuart. 
^  Detection. 


68     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Rizzio  slain.'  This  it  seems  came  from  her  heart  ;  for  within 
a  few  days,  the  unfortunate  young  Man,  as  an  Inferiae  to 
the  Ghost  of  a  Fidler,  was  strangled  in  his  Bed  .  .  .  and  his 
Body  thrown  out  into  the  garden";  and  again  "suddenly, 
without  any  Funeral  Honour  in  the  Night  Time,  by  common 
Carriers  of  dead  Bodies,  upon  a  vile  Bier,  she  caused  him  to 
be  buried  by  David  Rizzio." 

It  was  thus  a  definite  belief  of  Shakespeare's  age, 
as  the  quotations  above  clearly  show,  that  the  oath 
ensuring  the  murder  of  Darnle}^  had  been  taken  in 
the  vaults  of  Holyrood  over  the  grave  of  Rizzio,  and 
that  this  oath  was  punctually  and  to  the  time 
fulfilled. 

Does  it  not  look  as  if  it  were  this  that  had  suggested 
the  scene  when  the  ghost  in  his  turn  reminds  Hamlet  of 
his  oath  with  the  voice  that  comes  from  the  "  Cellarage." 
The  whole  incident  was,  to  the  last  degree,  gruesome  and 
suggestive,  and  is  it  not  most  exceedingly  plausible  that 
a  popular  dramatist  and  a  tragic  dramatist  would  prefer 
to  work  upon  the  emotions  that  he  knew  to  be  existing 
in  the  minds  of  his  audience  ?  This  is  why  we  cannot 
be  assured  that  we  understand  Shakespeare  fully  unless 
we  take  into  account  the  Elizabethan  point  of  view,  for 
the  associations  existing  in  their  minds,  and  to  which 
the  dramatist  would  naturally  appeal,  do  not  exist  in 
ours. 

Another  resemblance  to  the  Darnley  murder  lies  in  the 
attitude  of  the  queen  who  is  always  loyal  to  her  second 
husband  ;  she  will  not  leave  him  even  for  Hamlet's  bitter 
rebukes,  and  she  takes  his  part  until  the  end. 

This,  of  course,  was  characteristic  of  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots,  who  could  not  be  persuaded  to  renounce  Bothwell. 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder       69 

Throckmorton,  in  a  letter  to  Elizabeth,  July  1564, 
says  : 

"  The  queen  will  not  by  any  means  be  induced  to  lend  her 
authority  to  prosecute  the  murder,  nor  will  not  consent  by 
any  persuasion  to  abandon  the  lord  Bothwell  for  her  husband, 
but  avoweth  constantly  that  she  will  hve  and  die  with  him 
and  sayeth  that  if  it  were  put  to  her  choice  to  relinquish  her 
crown  and  kingdom  for  the  lord  Bothwell  she  would  leave 
her  kingdom  and  dignity  to  live  as  a  simple  damoiselle  with 
him  and  that  she  will  never  consent  that  he  shall  fare  worse 
or  have  more  harm  than  herself." 

So  Throckmorton  says  again  to  Elizabeth : 

"  She  will  by  no  means  yield  to  abandon  Botliwell  for  her 
husband,  nor  reUnquish  him  ;  which  matter  will  do  her  most 
harm  of  all  and  hardneth  these  lords  to  great  severity  against 
her." 

So  the  Lords  of  Scotland  communicate  to  Sir  Nicholas 
Throckmorton,  July  1567  : 

"  We  began  to  deal  with  her  majesty,  and  to  persuade  her 
that,  for  her  own  honour,  the  safety  of  her  son,  the  discharging 
of  her  conscience  .  .  .  she  would  be  content  to  separate  herself 
from  that  wicked  man,  to  whom  she  was  never  lawfully  joined, 
and  with  whom  she  could  not  remain  without  a  manifest  loss 
of  honour  .  .  .  but  all  in  vain." 

Throckmorton  himself  repeatedly  states  to  Elizabeth 
that  the  Lords  were  willing  to  be  lenient  to  Mary 
personally. 

"  I  have  also  persuaded  herself  to  renounce  Bothwell  for  her 
husband  and  to  be  contented  to  suffer  a  divorce  to  pass 
between  them  ;  she  hath  sent  me  word  that  she  will  in  no 
wise  consent  to  it  but  will  rather  die." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  see  the  hkeness  between  this 


70     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

and  Hamlet's  expostulation  with  the  queen,^  when  he 
reproaches  her  with  the  dishonour  she  has  brought  upon 
herself,  appeals  to  her  conscience,  and  finally  implores 
her  to  leave  his  uncle  : 

"  Good-night ;    but  go  not  to  mine  uncle's  bed  ; 
.  .  .  Refrain  to-night, 
And  that  sliall  lend  a  kind  of  easiness 
To  the  next  abstinence  ;  the  next  more  easy." 

Once  again  there  is  no  parallel  whatever  in  the  original 
prose  source. 

One  more  curious  detail  ma}'  be  added. 

Claudius,  in  Hamlet,  is  specially  associated  with  three 
courtiers  called  respectively,  Osric,^  Rosencrantz,  and 
Guildenstciu,^  and  among  the  people  who  received  the 
captured  Bothwell  in  Denmark  was  a  certain  "  Eric 
Rosencrantz.''  ^ 

I  hav^e  already  pointed  out  that  there  was  a  Guildenstern 
at  the  court  of  Scotland. 

Before  leaving,  finally,  the  subject  of  the  D.irnley 
murder,  it  is  important  to  remember  that  Jaraes  T.  and 
Bothwell  were,  from  the  outset,  pitted  against  «^  i«  h  other 
by  their  respective  supporters.  The  prince,  though  only 
an  infant,  was  legally  represented  as  demanding  vengeance 
for  his  mmdercd  father,  and  Bothwell  was  very  generally 
supposed  to  have  designs  upon  his  life. 

"  IBothwcU  after  his  marriage  to  the  queen,"  says  Sir 
James  Melville,  "was  very  earnest  to  get  the  Prince  in  his 
bands  but  my  I^rd  of  Mar  would  not  deliver  him,  praying 
me  to  help  to  saNC  the  Prince  out  of  their  hands  who  had 

'  Act  in.,  iv.  «  Act  v.,  ii.  ^  Act  lY.,  ii. 

*  Les  Afftins  J-i  ('     V  i^c  n.  l-'A  (B,    ..   ty-io  CNib). 


Hamlet  and  the  Darnley  Murder        71 

slain  his  father  and  had  made  his  vaunt  aheady  among  his 
famiUars  that,  if  he  could  get  him  once  in  his  hands,  he  should 
warrant  him  from  revenging  of  his  father's  death." 

Similarly  the  proclamation  issued  1567  by  the  Con- 
federate Lords  said  that  Bothwell  had  murdered  the  king, 
had  entrapped  the  queen  into  an  "  unhonest  marriage," 
and  had  made  preparations  "  to  commit  the  like  murther 
upon  the  son  as  was  upon  the  father." 

At  the  battle  of  Carberry  Hill  the  Confederate  Lords 
had,  as  their  standard,  their  favourite  picture  of  the 
murdered  man  and  of  the  infant  prince  kneeling  by  the 
side  of  the  corpse,  and  demanding  vengeance. 


CHAPTER  III 

JAMES   I.    AND   HAMLET 

And  now  I  will  turn  to  what  has  always  been  acknow- 
ledged as  the  crucial  problem  of  the  drama :  the  character 
of  the  hero  himself,  his  m^^lancholy  and  irresolution. 
The  main  problem  of  Hamlet  always  has  been  to  determine 
why  Hamlet  does  not  act.  He  knows  what  he  ought  to 
do  ;  he  himself  realises  it  fully.  Why  does  he  not  com- 
plete his  task  ?  Does  he  hesitate,  as  Goethe  thinks, 
because  of  a  fineness  of  nature  too  great  for  the  coarseness 
of  the  task  which  is  thrust  upon  him  ?  Does  he  hesitate, 
as  he  himself  accuses  himself,  out  of  mere  slothfulness  ? 
Does  he  hesitate,  as  Coleridge  suggests,  because  in  him 
the  powers  of  thought  have  so  far  outweighed  the 
powers  of  action  that  he  cannot  act  ?  Does  he  hesitate 
because  incipient  insanity  is  sapping  his  intellect  ?  All 
these  points  of  view  have  been  advanced,  have  been 
discussed  at  length  in  volume  after  volume.  Mr  Brad- 
ley, in  his  Shakespearean  Tragedy,  has  reviewed  many 
of  them  With,  admirable  cogency,  and  in  The  Problem 
oj  Hamlet  Mr  J.  M.  Robertson  has  shown  that  in 
his  opinion  the  inconsistencies  in  the  character  of 
Hamlet  cannot  be  really  reconciled,  which  he  explains 
by  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  is  working  over  material 
set  for  him  by  an  early  play. 
A  study  of  Furness's  "  Variorum  Edition  "  of  Hamlet  will 

72 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  73 

show  how  numerous  these  explanations  are,  and  how 
very  greatly  they  vary. 

My  own  suggestion  would  be  that  Hamlet  was  probably 
a  great  deal  simpler  for  Shakespeare's  audience  to  under- 
stand than  it  is  for  us  ;  they  carried  in  all  likelihood  a 
commentary  in  their  own  minds  which  enabled  them  to 
comprehend  it  more  easily  than  we  can.  Tolstoy  has, 
in  fact,  accused  Shakespeare  of  not  being  a  great  artist,^ 
precisely  because  Hamlet  is  so  difficult  to  understand ; 
now  as  Shakespeare  was  not  only  a  great  artist,  but, 
also,  as  we  know  him  to  have  been,  a  popular  dramatist 
of  intense  appeal,  the  difficulty  is  probably  one  which 
exists  mainly  for  later  commentators  and  did  not  exist 
to  the  same  extent  for  the  original  audience. 

My  own  explanation  of  the  central  theme  of  the  play 
would  be  that  Shakespeare  was  stating  with  unexampled 
force  and  cogency  an  historical  problem  which  neither 
he  nor  any  member  of  his  audience  possessed  at  that  time 
the  data  for  quite  adequately  solving.  It  is  my  purpose 
to  show,  however,  that  the  problem  was  essentially 
historical  and  political.  Let  us  first  observe  clearly  one 
point ;  there  is  not  a  hint  or  shadow  of  the  main  problem 
in  the  prose  source. 

In  Saxo  Grammaticus  and  the  Hysiorie  of  Hamhlet 
alike  the  task  before  the  hero  is  perfectly  simple  and 
the  difficulties  are  all  obvious  and  material.  The  hero 
desires  to  avenge  his  father's  murder  and  he  desires  to 
gain  for  himself  the  crown  which  his  uncle  has  usurped ; 
he  pursues  these  aims  with  relentless  determination  and 
undeviating  skill ;  but,  since  he  is  isolated  among  enemies, 

»  What  is  Art? 


74     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

he  shams  madness  as  a  means  of  putting  these  enemies 
off  the  scent,  and  his  madness  takes  the  most  grotesque 
and  ridiculous  form. 
Saxo  says : 

"  Every  day  he  remained  in  his  house  utterly  hstless  and 
unclean,  flinging  himself  on  the  ground  and  bespattering  his 
person  with  foul  and  filthy  dirt.  His  discoloured  face  and 
visage  smutched  with  slime  denoted  foolish  and  grotesque 
madness. 

"...  He  used  at  times  to  sit  by  the  fire  and  rake  the  embers 
with  his  hands." 

The  Hystorie  oj  Hamhlet  is  still  more  extravagant : 

"  hee  rent  and  tore  his  clothes,  wallowing  and  lying  in  the 
dust  and  mire,  his  face  all  filthy  and  blacke,  running  through 
the  streets  like  a  man  distraught,  not  speaking  one  word  but 
such  as  seemed  to  proceed  from  madness  and  mere  frenzy," 

We  can  see  at  once  the  enormous  difference  between 
this  coarse  and  crude  representation  and  the  subtlety  of 
Hamlet. 

Now  let  us  compare  the  character  of  Hamlet  carefully 
Nvith  what  was,  at  that  time,  known  of  James  I. 

There  is,  as  already  pointed  out,  the  fact  of  education 
at  a  university  specially  associated  with  Protestant 
theology ;  James  himself  was,  of  course,  all  his  hfe 
famous  as  a  Protestant  theologian ;  he  took  part  in 
theological  discussions,  he  presided  at  theological  dis- 
cussions, and  he  showed  marked  ability  in  argument. 

Hamlet  is  the  most  philosophic  and  meditative  of  all 
Shakespeare's  characters,  and  he  shows  a  curious  love  of 
the  darker  side  of  nature. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  75 

Now  James  was  the  pupil  of  a  distinguished  scholar 
— Buchanan  ;  he  took  all  his  life  a  great  interest  in 
philosophy,  and  he  was,  as  his  books  show,  especially 
fond  of  studying  the  darker  side  of  nature. 

James  was,  in  his  early  life  at  least,  much  isolated ; 
there  was  hardly  anyone  whom  he  really  trusted  except 
possibly  Erskine  of  Mar,  in  whom  he  had  immense  con- 
fidence, and  with  whom  he  had  been  educated.  So 
Shakespeare  represents  Hamlet  as  being  lonely  and 
isolated  ;  but  as  having  one  friend  in  whom  he  reposes 
perfect  confidence  and  absolute  trust — that  one  friend 
being  his  fellow-student — Horatio. 

This  second  Earl  of  Mar  was  the  son  of  the  first  Earl 
who  had  rescued  James  in  his  infancy  from  the  hands 
of  Bothwell  as  recounted  above  ;  this  second  Earl  having 
been  James'  own  fellow-student,  it  was  to  him  that 
he  entrusted  the  education  of  Prince  Henry.  We  may 
also  observe  that  Mar  was  in  England  at  the  time  Hamlet 
was  written  ;  he  had  been  sent  by  James  to  confer  with 
Essex  ;  when  he  arrived,  however,  he  found  that  Essex 
had  already  been  executed,  and  he  chose  his  own  line  of 
action,  his  aim  being  to  get  his  master's  right  to  the 
succession  established ;  Elizabeth  is  said  to  have  given 
him  the  promise  he  required. 

On  March  25th,  Tobie  Matthew  writes  to  Dudley 
Carleton  : 

"  The  Earl  of  Mar  is  here,  as  ambassador  out  of  Scotland, 
to  congratulate  the  queen's  deliverance,  to  desire  that  his 
master  may  he  declared  successor,  and  to  act,  as  is  conjectured, 
some  greater  business  which  is  likely  enough,  for  he  is  a  man 
of  extraordinary  courage  and  place." 


76      Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Now,  when  we  remember  that  Mar  was  actually  in 
England  at  the  time  Hamlet  was  composed,  and  that 
Shakespeare  had  every  reason  for  furthering  his  mission, 
it  does  look  as  if  he  might  have  given  hints  for  Horatio — 
the  trusted  friend  and  fellow-student. 

The  most  pecuhar  trait  in  Hamlet's  character  is  his 
vacillation.  He  knows  how  he  ought  to  act,  yet  he 
hesitates  whenever  action  is  necessary ;  on  the  other 
hand,  he  has  plenty  of  nerve  in  important  crises  ;  when 
a  crisis  arrives  he  can  act,  and  often  does  act,  with  quite 
exceptional  strength  and  \T.gour, 

Professor  Bradley  analyses  at  some  length  this  extra- 
ordinary contradiction ;  he  does  not  find  Hamlet 
essentially  the  meditative,  irresolute  person  whom 
Coleridge  and  Schlegal  believe  him  to  be  ;  he  finds  that 
he  has  a  capacity  for  strong  and  vigorous  action  which 
is,  however,  lamed  by  his  melancholy  : 

"  This  state  accounts  for  Hamlet's  energy  as  well  as  for  his 
lassitude,  these  quick  decided  actions  of  his  being  the  out- 
come of  a  nature  normally  far  from  passive,  now  suddenly 
stimulated  and  producing  healthy  impulses  which  work 
themselves  out  before  they  have  time  to  subside." 

Examples  of  this  sudden  vigorous  action  are,  of  course, 
Hamlet's  behaviour  in  the  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern 
affair,  also  his  conduct  at  the  end  of  the  play,  etc.,  etc. 

Now,  this  curious  baffling  character,  this  hesitancy 
and  delay  combined  with  sudden  vigour  in  emergencies, 

» 

is  just  precisely  the  character  of  James  I.  as  it  appeared 
to  his  contemporaries. 

Perhaps  the  best  evidence  on  this  point  can  be  found 
in    the    correspondence    of    Elizabeth    and    James.     We 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  77 

there  find  Elizabeth,  in  letter  after  letter,  taking  almost 
precisely  this  view  of  James'  character  ;  she  advises  him 
to  be  stern  and  to  punish  where  punishment  is  due  ;  it 
is  not,  she  declares,  that  she  herself  loves  bloodshed  or 
revenge ;  but  it  is  a  monarch's  duty  both  to  himself 
and  to  his  kingdom  that  he  should  punish  rebellious 
subjects.  She  warns  James  that  the  younger  Bothwell 
(the  nephew  of  his  mother's  husband),  has  repeatedly 
plotted  against  his  Kfe ;  he  knows  that  Bothwell  has  so 
conspired  ;  he  knows  that  his  life  is  endangered. 

^\^ly  does  he  not  take  adequate  means  to  defend  himself 
and  his  kingdom  ?  His  delay  is  not  so  much  mercy  as 
slothfulness  and  sheer  weakness  of  will.  It  is  unkingly. 
He  talks,  but  achieves  nothing. 

Let  me  quote  some  highly  significant  examples  : 

"  If  with  my  eyes  I  had  not  viewed  these  treasons  I  should 
be  ashamed  to  write  them  you.  And  shall  I  tell  you  my 
thought  herein  ?  I  assure  you,  you  are  well  worthy  of  such 
traitors,  that,  when  you  knew  them  and  had  them,  you 
betrayed  your  own  safety  in  favouring  their  lives.  Good 
Lord  !  who  but  yourself  would  have  left  such  people  to  be 
able  to  do  you  wrong  ?  Give  order  with  speed,  that  such 
scape  not  your  correction,"  ^ 

We  may  compare  this  with  Hamlet's  bitter  self- 
reproaches  :  2 

"  I  .  .  . 

A  dull  and  muddy-mettled  rascal,  peak. 

Like  John-a-dreams,  unpregnant  of  my  cause, 

And  can  say  nothing ;  .  .  . 


1  Camden    Society's     Publications.     Letter    XXXIV.     (spelling 
modernised). 
»  Act  II.,  ii. 


y8     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

it  cannot  be 
But  I  am  pigeon-liver'd  and  lack  gall 
To  make  oppression  bitter." 

Let  us  keep  in  mind  all  the  time  that  there  is  not  one 
word  of  this  reproach  or  hesitation  in  Shakespeare's 
source.  The  hero  of  the  saga  story  pits  himself  as 
directly  as  possible  against  the  king  ;  he  is  delayed  by 
external  circumstances  solely,  never  by  his  own  fault  ; 
indeed,  the  whole  point  of  the  tale  lies  in  the  courage 
and  decision  of  the  prince  who  pursues  his  plan  with 
undeviating  resolution  in  the  midst  of  the  most  difficult 
circumstances,  and  we  have  no  reason  to  assume  any 
difference  in  the  Hamlet  of  Kyd's  play. 

Again  let  us  quote  Elizabeth  ^  : 

"  I  hope  you  will  not  be  careless  of  such  practises  as  hath 
passed  from  any  of  yours  without  your  commission,  specially 
such  attempts  as  might  ruin  your  realm  and  danger  5'ou. 
If  any  respect  whatever  make  you  neglect  so  expedient  a 
work,  I  am  afraid  your  careless  hide  will  work  your  unlocked 
danger." 

Place  this  beside  Hamlet  ^ : 

"  How  all  occasions  do  inform  against  me. 
And  spur  my  dull  revenge  !    What  is  a  man, 
If  his  chief  good  and  market  of  his  time 
Be  but  to  sleep  and  feed  ?     A  beast,  no  more. 

.   .  .  Now,  whether  it  be 
Bestial  oblivion,  or  some  craven  scruple 
Of  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event, — 
A  thought  which,  quarter'd,  hath  one  part  wisdom 
And  ever  three  parts  coward,  I  do  not  know 
Why  yet  I  live  to  say  !     '  This  thing's  to  do,' 
Sith  I  have  cause  and  will  and  strength  and  means 
To  do't." 


»  Letter  XXXV.  *  Act  IV.,  iv. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  79 

Hamlet,  in  fact,  is  as  candid  with  himself  as  Elizabeth 
is  with  James ;  the  mental  malady  which  they  are 
analysing  appears  to  be  of  exactly  the  same  type.  The 
main  outlines  of  James'  character,  as  shown  by  his  actions, 
were,  of  course,  known  to  every  one  who  followed  public 
affairs  ;  Shakespeare  was  certainly  no  less  keen  a  student 
of  character  than  Elizabeth  and  the  analysis  which 
would  be  possible  to  her  would  be  equally  possible  to 
the  poet. 

Again  we  quote  Elizabeth.  The  occasion  of  the  next 
letter  is  described  as  follows  by  Mr  Tytler  : 

"  Attacking  the  palace  of  Holyrood  at  the  head  of  his 
desperate  followers  Bothwell  had  nearly  surprised  and  made 
prisoners  both  the  king  and  his  chancellor.  .  .  .  An  alarm 
was  given,  the  king  took  refuge  in  one  of  the  turrets,  the 
chancellor  barricaded  his  room  and  bravely  beat  off  his 
assailants  ;  whilst  the  citizens  of  Edinburgh,  headed  by  their 
provost,  rushed  into  the  outer  court  of  the  palace,  and, 
cutting  their  way  through  the  outer  ranks  of  the  borderers, 
compelled  Bothwell  to  precipitate  flight." 

Elizabeth's  letter  runs  : 

"  My  dear  brother.  Though  the  hearing  of  your  most 
dangerous  peril  be  that  thing  that  I  most  reverently  render 
my  most  lowly  thanks  to  God  that  you,  by  his  mighty  hand, 
hath  scaped  yet  hath  it  been  no  other  hazard  than  such  as 
both  hath  been  foreseen  and  foretold.  ...  I  know  not 
what  to  write,  so  little  do  I  like  to  lose  labour  in  vain  ;  for 
if  I  saw  counsel  avail  or  aught  pursued  in  due  time  or  season, 
I  should  tliink  my  time  fortunately  spent  to  make  you  reap 
the  due  fruit  of  ripe  opportunity-  ;  but  I  see  you  have  no 
look  to  help  your  state  nor  to  assure  you  from  treason's 
leisure.  You  give  too  much  respite  to  rid  your  harm  or 
shorten  other's  haste.  Well  :  I  will  pray  for  you  that  God 
will  unseal  your  eyes  that  have  too  long  been  shut." 


8o     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Here,  again,  we  have  a  situation  very  closely  parallel 
to  the  one  in  Hamlet,  and  all  these  letters  are  connected, 
be  it  noted,  with  the  younger  Bothwell. 

The  younger  Bothwell  had  been  practising  against 
the  life  and  liberty  of  James  almost  exactly  as  Claudius 
practised  against  the  life  of  Hamlet ;  but  the  most  open 
practices,  the  most  manifest  insults,  cannot  sting  James 
into  action.  Elizabeth  is  filled  with  wonder  and  horror 
that  a  monarch  can  submit  to  such  insults. 

So  Hamlet  accuses  himself  of  submission  to  insult :  ^ 

"  Am  I  a  coward? 
Who  calls  me  villain  ?     Breaks  my  pate  across  ? 
Plucks  off  my  beard,  and  blows  it  in  my  face  ? 
Tweaks  me  by  the  nose  ?   gives  me  the  lie  i'  the  throat, 
As  deep  as  to  the  lungs  ?  who  does  me  this  ? 
Ha! 
'Swounds  I  should  take  it." 

After  the  conspiracy  known  as  the  "  Spanish  Blanks " 
Elizabeth  writes  to  James  : 

"  If  you  do  not  rake  it  to  the  bottom,  you  will  verify  what 
many  a  wise  man  hath  (viewing  your  proceedings)  judged  of 
your  guiltiness  of  your  own  wrack.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  beheld  of  late,  a  strange  dishonourable  and 
dangerous  pardon  which,  if  it  be  true,  you  have  not  only 
neglected  yourself  but  wronged  me  !  " 

Another  letter  of  vehement  expostulation  seems  to 
belong  to  the  year  1592  when  James  had  been  literally 
driven  from  place  to  place  by  the  factious  Bothwell  2 : 

"  To  redouble  crimes  so  oft,  I  say,  with  your  pardon,  must 
to  your  charge,  which  never  durst  have  been  renewed  if  the 


»  Act  II.,  ii.  «  Letter  XLIV. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  8i 

first  had  received  the  condign  reward  ;  for  slacking  of  due 
correction  engenders  the  bold  minds  for  new  crimes.  ...  I 
hear  of  so  uncouth  a  way  taken  by  some  of  your  conventions, 
yea  agreed  to  by  your  selfe  that  I  must  wonder  how  you  will 
be  clerk  to  such  lessons. 

"  .  .  .  O  Lord,  what  strange  dreams  hear  I  that  would 
God  they  were  so,  for  then  at  my  waking  I  should  find  them 
fables.  If  you  mean,  therefore,  to  reign  I  exhort  you  to 
show  yourself  worthy  of  the  place  which  never  can  be  surely 
settled  without  a  steady  course  held  to  make  you  loved  and 
feared.  I  assure  myself  many  have  escaped  your  hands 
more  for  dread  of  your  remissness  than  for  love  of  the  escaped  ; 
so  oft  they  see  you  cherishing  some  men  for  open  crimes  and 
so  they  mistrust  more  their  revenge  than  your  assurance.  .  .  . 
And  since  it  so  hkes  your  to  demand  my  counsel,  I  find  so 
many  ways  your  state  so  unjoynted,  that  it  needs  a  skilfuUer 
bone-setter  than  I  to  joyne  each  part  in  its  right  place." 

One  may  compare  this  with  Hamlet's  bitter  cry  ^  : 

"  The  time  is  out  of  joint  :    O  cursed  spite 
That  ever  I  was  bom  to  set  it  right." 

In  exactly  the  same  way  as  Elizabeth  piles  up  the 

indignities  James  has  suffered,  so  Hamlet  piles  up  those 

he  endures  himself  - : 

"  How  stand  I  then, 
That  have  a  father  kill'd,  a  mother  stain'd. 
Excitements  of  my  reason  and  my  blood. 
And  let  all  sleep  ?   while  to  my  shame  I  see 
The  imminent  death  of  twenty  thousand  men, 
That,  for  a  fantasy  and  trick  of  fame. 
Go  to  their  graves  like  beds." 

In  another  letter  Elizabeth  points  out  to  him  how  his 
laxness  has  caused  corruption  in  the  whole  state  : 

"A  long-rooted  malady,  falling  to  many  relapses,  argues, 


1  Act  I.,  v.  «  Act  IV.,  iv. 


82     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

by  reason  that  the  body  is  so  corrupt  that  it  may  never  be 
sound.  When  great  infections  hght  on  many  it  almost 
poisons  the  whole  country."  ^ 

Compare  this  with  Hamlet : 

"  How  weary,  stale,  flat  and  unprofitable 
Seem  to  me  all  the  uses  of  this  world  ! 
Fie  on't !  ah  fie  !   'tis  an  unweeded  garden, 
That  grows  to  seed  ;   things  rank  and  gross  in  nature 
Possess  it  merely."  * 

Again  Elizabeth  says  : 

"  If  the  variableness  of  Scotch  aflfairs  had  not  inured  me 
with  too  old  a  custom  I  should  never  leave  wondering  at 
such  strange  and  uncouth  actions  ;  but  I  have  so  oft  with 
careful  eyes  foreseen  the  evil-coming  harms  and  .  .  .  see 
them  either  not  believed  or  not  redressed  that  I  grow  weary 
of  such  fruitless  labour.  One  while  I  receive  a  writ  of  oblixdon 
and  foregiveness,  then  a  revocation,  with  new  additions  of 
later  consideration  ;  sometimes,  some  you  call  traitors  with 
proclaim,  and  anon,  there  must  be  no  proof  allowed,  though 
never  so  apparent,  against  them." 

Here,  again,  we  have  the  likeness  to  Hamlet.  Hamlet 
has  proof  after  proof  of  the  king's  guilt,  yet  always 
demands  more  and  more  and  is  never,  apparently, 
satisfied. 

"What  thank  may  they  give  your  mercy,"  Elizabeth  con- 
tinues, "  when  no  crime  is  tried  ?  .  .  .  And  for  Bothwell, 
Jesus  !  Did  ever  any  muse  more  than  I,  that  you  could  so 
quietly  put  up  so  temerous,  indigne,  a  fact,  and  yet  by  your 
hand  receiving  assurance  tliat  all  was  pardoned  and  finished, 
I  refer  me  to  my  own  letter  what  doom  I  gave  thereof.  And 
now  to  hear  all  revoked  and  either  scanted  or  denied  and  the 
wheel  to  turn  to  as  ill  a  spoke."  ^ 

»  Letter  XLVIII.  »  Act  I.,  ii. 

'  Quoted  from  Tytler,  .\nswer  1,111. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  83 

Yet  again  (1593),  James  pardons  Bothwell,  and 
Elizabeth  replies  in  the  height  of  impatience  and  anger  : 

"  My  Dear  Brother — To  see  so  much,  I  rue  my  sight,  that 
views  the  evident  spectacle  of  a  seduced  king,  abusing  council 
and  wry-guided  kingdom.   .   .   . 

"  I  doubt  whether  shame  or  sorrow  have  had  the  upper  hand 
when  I  read  your  last  lines  to  me.  .  .  .  Abuse  not  yourself 
so  far.  .  .  .  Assure  yourself  no  greater  peril  can  ever  befall 
you,  nor  any  king  else,  than  to  take  for  payment  evil  accounts  ; 
for  they  deride  such  and  make  their  prey  of  your  neglect. 
There  is  no  prince  alive,  but  if  he  show  fear  or  yielding  but 
he  shall  have  tutors  enough  though  he  be  out  of  minority'. 
And  when  I  remember  what  sore  punishment  these  lewd 
traitors  should  have,  then  I  read  again,  lest  at  first  I  mistook 
your  mind  ;  but  when  the  reviewing  granted  my  lecture  true, 
Lord  !  what  wonder  grew  in  me,  that  you  should  correct 
them  with  benefits  who  deserve  much  severer  correction.  .  .  . 
Is  it  possible  that  you  can  swallow  the  taste  of  so  bitter  a 
drug  more  meet  to  purge  you  of  them,  than  worthy  of  your 
kindly  acceptance. 

"  I  never  heard  a  more  deriding  scorn." 

Here,  again,  Elizabeth  wonders  at  the  disgraces  and 
scorns  to  which  James  will  submit  just  precisely  as 
Hamlet  wonders  why  he  submits  to  such  infamies  and 
shames. 

Does  it  not  look  as  if  the  mental  malady  in  the  two 
were  identical  ?  Elizabeth  and  Shakespeare  were  both 
people  of  genius  and  they  were  analysing  one  and  the 
same  case. 

We  may  quote  here  an  incident,  no  doubt  among 
those  alluded  to  by  the  queen,  which  seems  to  have  an 
important  bearing  on  Hamlet : 

"  On  2ist  July  sentence  of  forfeiture  was  passed  against 
him  (Bothwell)  by  parliament,  all  his  property  being  con- 


84     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

fiscated,  and  his  arms  riven  at  the  cross  of  Edinburgh.  His 
friends  thereupon  determined  to  make  a  special  effort  upon 
his  behalf.  The  Duke  of  Lennox  and  other  noblemen  secretly 
sympathised  with  him,  on  account  of  their  jealousy  of  Maitland. 
On  the  evening  of  the  24th,  after  assembhng  their  retainers 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  palace,  Bothwell  in  disguise  was 
introduced  into  the  king's  chamber  during  liis  temporary 
absence.  On  returning,  the  king  found  Bothwell  on  his 
knees,  with  his  drawn  sword  laid  before  him  crying  with  a 
loud  voice  for  pardon  and  mercy. 

"  The  king  called  out  '  Treason  ' ;  the  citizens  of  Edinburgh 
hurried  in  battle  array  into  the  inner  court ;  but  the  king, 
pacified  by  the  assurances  of  those  in  attendance  on  him, 
commanded  them  to  retire.  Bothwell  persisted  that  he 
did  not  come  in  '  any  manner  of  hostihty,  but  in  plain 
simplicity.' 

"  To  remove  the  king's  manifest  terror  he  offered  to  depart 
immediately  and  remain  in  banishment,  or  in  any  other  part 
of  the  country  till  his  day  of  trial. 

"  The  king  pennitted  him  to  leave  and  an  act  of  condonation 
and  remission  was  passed  in  his  favour  but  .  .  .  the  king 
remained  '  in  perpetual  grief  of  mind,'  affirming  tliat  he 
was  virtually  the  captive  of  Bothwell  and  the  other  noblemen 
who  had  abetted  him.  .  .  . 

"  On  14th  August,  he  signed  an  agreement  binding  himself 
to  pardon  Bothwell  and  his  adherents,  and  to  restore  them  to 
their  estates  and  honours,  the  agreement  to  be  ratified  by  a 
parliament  to  be  held  in  the  following  November  ;  but  at  a 
convention  held  at  Stirling  on  8th  September  an  attempt 
was  made  to  modify  the  bargain,  it  being  set  forth  as  a  con- 
dition of  Bothwell's  restoration  that  he  should  remain  beyond 
seas  during  the  king's  pleasure.  Matters  soon  drifted  into 
the  old  unsatisfactory  condition."  * 

Now,  here  we  surely  have  a  very  dose  approximation 
to  one  of  the  most  curious  scenes  in  Hamlet.  James  has 
suffered  all  kinds  of  outrages  and  indignities  from  the 

1  Diet.  Nat.  Biog. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  85 

younger  Bothwell  who  has  plotted  against  his  hfe  ;  at  last 
he  has  Bothwell  on  his  knees  before  him,  and  apparently 
at  his  mercy ;  Bothwell  implores  pardon  and  James 
hears  the  prayer  and  spares  him ;  but  he  does  not  and 
cannot  alter  their  real  relations  which,  soon  after,  assume 
the  same  unsatisfactory  character. 

So  Hamlet  finds  Claudius  upon  his  knees,  at  prayer 
and  defenceless  ;  he  has  Claudius  at  his  mercy  and  could 
destroy  him  ;  he  spares  him  for  the  time,  making  the 
excuse  that  he  does  not  want  to  send  his  soul  to  heaven  ; 
all  the  same  he  knows  that  Claudius  plots  against  his 
life,  and  that  he  is  practically  helpless  in  his  toils  ;  in  no 
real  sense  are  their  relations  altered. 

In  1595  Bothwell's  position  became  desperate  : 

"  His  association  with  the  Catholic  earls  proved  fatal. 
The  king  demanded  his  excommunication  by  the  kirk  and 
although  Bothwell  wrote  to  the  clergy  of  Edinburgh  offering 
to  receive  their  correction  for  whatever  offence  he  had  com- 
mitted he  was  on  i8th  February  excommunicated  by  the 
presbytery  of  Edinburgh  at  the  king's  command." 

It  looks  very  much  as  if  this  incident  had  suggested 
Hamlet's  determination  to  spare  Claudius  until  he  had 
achieved  his  religious  ruin,  until  he  finds  him  about  some 
act  "  that  has  no  relish  of  salvation  in't "  ;  this  incident 
has  startled  many  of  Shakespeare's  commentators  who 
cannot  believe  that  Hamlet  is  stating  his  motive  correctly 
because  it  would  be  "  too  horrible "  ;  but  if  Shake- 
speare is  simply  dramatising  history,  then  all  we  can 
say  is  that  the  parallel  is  remarkably  complete.  James 
did  find  Bothwell  on  his  knees  and  at  his  mercy ;  he  did 
spare   him,    and   he   spared  him    until   the    time   when 


86     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Bothwell,  at  the  king's  request,  was  excommunicated 
and  his  religious  ruin  achieved. 

There  is  no  trace  of  such  an  incident  either  in  Saxo 
Grammaticus  or  in  the  Hysiorie  oj  Harnhlet. 

Bothwell,  one  may  note,  had  very  often  professed 
friendship  towards  the  king,  and  had  declared  it  im- 
possible to  hate  "  where  both  benefits  and  blood  compelled 
him  to  love."  ^ 

One  may  compare  this  with  the  bitter  irony  of  Hamlet's  : 

"  A  little  more  than  kin  and  less  than  kind." 

Elizabeth,  as  we  have  seen  from  the  letters  already 

quoted,  was  continually  pointing  out  to  James  that  he 

did    not    do    his  duty   by  his    kingdom ;    the    younger 

Bothwell    provided    the    most    conspicuous    example    of 

this  neglect,  but  there  were  many  other  instances.     The 

final  result  is  that  James'  realm  goes  from  bad  to  worse. 

"  Weeds  in  the  fields,  if  they  be  suffered,  will  quickly  over- 
grow the  com,  but  subjects  being  dandled,  will  make  their 
own  reigns  and  forlet  another  reign."  ^ 

Compare  this  once  again  with  Hamlet's  cry  : 

"  How  weary,  stale,  flat  and  unprofitable 
Seem  to  me  all  the  uses  of  this  world  ! 
Fie  on't :  ah  fie  !   'tis  an  unweeded  garden. 
Grown  to  seed  ;   things  rank  and  gross  in  nature 
Possess  it  merely." 

The  resemblances  between  the  situation  dramatised 
in  Hamlet  and  the  situation  revealed  in  the  letters  of 
Ehzabeth  are  so  close  that  we  might  almost  believe  that 
Shakespeare  had  been  leaning  over  the  queen's  shoulder 
while  she  wrote. 

>  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.  *  Letter  LVII. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  87 

Surelj'  the  most  obvious  explanation  of  such  coin- 
cidences is  that  they  were  analysing  the  same  curious 
mentality. 

In  this  connection  I  may  refer  to  Mr  Bradley,  who 
points  out  that  there  is  undoubtedly  a  large  element  of 
lethargy  in  the  character  of  Hamlet : 

"  We  are  bound  to  consider  the  evidence  which  the  text 
supplies  of  this,  though  it  is  usual  to  ignore  it.  When 
Haqilet  mentions,  as  one  possible  cause  of  his  inaction,  his 
'  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event,'  he  mentions  another 
'  bestial  oblivion,'  and  the  thing  against  which  he  inveighs  in 
the  greater  part  of  that  soliloquy  (IV.,  iv.)  is  not  the  excess 
and  misuse  of  reason  (which  for  him  here  and  always  is  god- 
like) ;  but  his  bestial  oblivion  or  dullness,  this  letting  all 
sleep,  this  allowing  of  heaven-sent  reason  to  '  fust  unused.' 

'  What  is  a  man. 
If  his  chief  good  and  market  of  his  time, 
Be  but  to  sleep  and  feed  ?   a  beast,  no  more.' 

"  So,  in  the  soliloquy  (II.,  ii.)  he  accuses  himself  of  being  '  a 
dull  and  muddy-mettled  rascal  '  who  '  peaks  like  John-a- 
dreams  unpregnant  of  his  cause,'  dully  indifferent  to  his 
cause.  So,  when  the  Ghost  appears  to  him  the  second  time, 
he  accuses  himself  of  being  tardy  and  lapsed  in  time  ;  and 
the  Ghost  speaks  of  his  purpose  as  being  almost  blunted  and 
bids  him  not  to  forget."  ^ 

On  the   ordinary  supposition   that    Hamlet  is   simply 

a    psychological    problem    which    happened    to    interest 

Shakespeare  at  the  time,  it  has  always  been  somewhat 

difficult  to  comprehend  how  the  play  could  appeal  to  great 

popular  audiences  in  the  way  it  undoubtedly  did,  for  it 

was  one  of  the  most  frequently  acted  of  all  Shakespeare's 

tragedies. 

'  Shakespearean  Tragedy. 


88     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Revenge  tragedies  were  common,  but  they  were,  as 
a  rule,  sufficiently  simple  in  their  appeal.  Now  Mr 
Robertson  divines,  in  Kyd's  original  Hamlet,  almost 
exactly  such  a  tragedy  where  the  stress  was  laid,  as  it 
is  in  Saxo  and  in  the  Hystorie  oj  Hamblei,  mainly  upon 
the  motive  of  revenge. 

But  the  problem  dramatised  in  Hamlet  is  one  of 
singular  subtlety  and  complexity ;  it  is  the  problem 
of  a  man  who  sees  what  he  ought  to  do,  and  yet  cannot 
do  it ;  who  permits  people  to  heap  upon  him  outrage 
after  outrage,  insult  upon  insult,  and  yet  does  not  punish 
even  when  he  has  the  offender  in  his  power ;  it  is  the 
problem  of  one  who  is  ready  to  give  the  benefit  of  every 
doubt,  who  cannot  believe  even  in  reiterated  evidences 
of  crime  and  who,  even  when  he  is  convinced,  still  goes 
on  pardoning. 

Is  the  incapacity  for  action  due  to  the  fineness  of  a 
too  refined  nature  in  its  conflict  with  a  coarse  world  ?  Is 
it  mere  sloth  and  cowardice  and  a  want  of  princely,  nay, 
of  human  dignity  ?  Certainl}'  Hamlet  does  not  spare 
himself. 

Whatever  the  solution  of  the  problem  may  be,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  problem  itself  is  the  central  interest 
of  Shakespeare's  play,  and  that  there  is  not  a  trace  of 
it  in  the  original  story.  In  the  Amleth  Saga  the  hero 
has  to  employ  devious  methods  to  attain  his  purpose  ; 
but  in  the  purpose  itself  he  never  falters  or  wavers,  and 
we  have  no  reason  to  imagine  that  the  hero  of  Kyd's 
play  differed  greatly.  To  make  the  incapacity  for  action 
the  very  centre  of  a  tragedy  was  a  startling  innovation, 
and  a  most  curious  and  subtle  problejn  to  l;ring  before 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  89 

a  popular  audience.  But,  if  the  problem  were  really 
historical,  if  the  problem  concerned  the  character  of 
the  man  whose  succession  to  the  crown  was  just  then  the 
chief  question  of  practical  politics,  if  the  problem  con- 
cerned the  character  of  their  own  future  monarch  upon 
whom  all  the  destiny  of  England,  the  destiny  of  each 
member  of  the  audience,  essentially  depended,  we  can 
understand  at  once  why  Shakespeare  selected  a  subject 
so  unusual,  and  why  it  so  greatly  fascinated  both  his 
audience  and  himself. 

At  any  rate,  one  thing  is  certain.  Shakespeare's 
central  problem  does  not,  so  far  as  we  know,  exist  in 
any  of  his  so-called  sources  ;  it  does  exist  in  the  history 
— unmistakeable,  definite  and  clear ;  moreover,  it  was 
the  precise  historical  problem  which,  at  the  exact 
moment  Hamlet  was  written,  was  likely  to  interest 
Shakespeare's  audience  most. 

It  may,  of  course,  be  only  coincidence  ;  but  this  seems 
to  me  very  improbable  ;  a  great  dramatist  is  not  a  person 
working  in  a  void,  independent  of  time  and  space ; 
every  great  dramatist  has  to  deal  with  two  materials  : 
one  is  the  stuff  or  substance  of  his  own  dramatic  genius, 
the  other  is  the  mentality  of  his  audience. 

It  is  and  must  be  a  main  part  of  dramatic  genius  to 
utilise  the  susceptibilities  and  interests  of  the  audience 
in  the  fullest  way  possible. 

Now,  suppose  that  Shakespeare  really  desires  to  do 
this.  His  audience,  just  at  that  moment,  are  probably 
more  interested  in  the  question  of  the  Scottish  succession 
and  the  Essex  conspiracy  than  in  anything  else  upon 
earth.     Suppose    he    wishes    to    avail    himsHf    of    this 


90     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

interest  and  to  dramatise  Scottish  history  and  the 
character  of  James. 

How  will  he  set  about  it  ? 

From  the  point  of  view  of  drama  history  is  too  diffuse  ; 
its  interest  is  distracted  and  dissipated. 

Thus  the  situation  of  James  whose  father  has  been 
murdered,  and  whose  mother  has  married  his  father's 
murderer,  this  situation  is,  in  itself,  an  intensely  inter- 
esting one,  the  more  so  as  the  prince  himself  is  claimed 
as  "  the  avenger  of  his  father  "  ;  dramatically  considered 
the  situation  has,  however,  one  serious  flaw — the  flaw 
that  the  prince  is  an  infant  at  the  time,  and  cannot 
possibly  pursue  in  person  this  "vengeance." 

Again,  the  whole  of  the  relations  between  James  and 
the  younger  Bothwell  are  singularly  interesting  as  an 
illustration  of  the  character  of  James — the  doubts,  the 
hesitancy,  the  reluctance  to  punish,  the  demanding  ever 
fresh  and  fresh  proofs,  which  proofs  never  satisfy,  the 
refusal  to  be  roused  even  by  insults,  even  by  manifest 
plots  against  his  own  life,  all  this  is  exceedingly  inter- 
esting ;  but  it  is  really  quite  a  different  story  from  the 
story  of  his  father's  murder,  and  to  put  them  both  into 
a  drama  would  be,  quite  inevitably,  to  diffuse  and  break 
the  dramatic  interest. 

It  could  not  make  a  good  play.  An  excellent  drama 
can,  however,  be  made  by  combining  in  one  the  parts 
plaj^ed  by  the  two  Bothwells.  There  is  nothing  difficult 
in  such  a  conception  :  the  two  belonged  to  the  same 
family,^   they   were    uncle    and    nephew,   they  held   the 

*  The  younger  Bothwell  ou  the  mother's  side  ;  on  the  father's  he 
was  a  Stuart. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  91 

same  title  ;  they  were  not  very  dissimilar  in  character  ; 
even  modern  Scottish  historians  have  remarked  that  the 
younger  Bothwell  seemed  like  a  reincarnation  of  the  elder. 

The  device  of  putting  the  two  in  one  is  quite  simple 
and  obvious,  and  makes  excellent  drama :  the  crimes 
committed  by  Claudius  are  the  crimes  of  the  elder  Bothwell 
which  are  far  more  striking  and  dramatic  than  the  crimes 
of  the  younger  Bothwell  ;  but  the  relation  of  Hamlet  to 
Claudius  is  the  relation  of  James  to  the  younger  Bothwell. 
\\Tiy  not  ?  James  was  neglecting  his  duty  to  his 
kingdom  just  as  thoroughly  as  Hamlet  was  neglecting 
his  dut}^  to  his  father,  only  the  latter  happens  to  be  the 
thing  which  can,  most  effectively,  be  put  upon  the  stage. 

Thus,  instead  of  two  stories  with  their  interests  diffused, 
we  have  one  story  with  its  interest  enormously  con- 
centrated. And  there  is  this  further  advantage,  that 
whereas  no  censorship  would  permit  Shakespeare  to 
dramatise  Scottish  history  as  it  really  occurred,  the 
censorship  could  not  prevent  him  from  dramatising 
history,  if  he  altered  it  to  some  extent,  and  called  it 
Hamlet. 

This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  essential  part  of  the  play, 
and  this  is  the  real  reason  why  Shakespeare  borrows  a 
name  and  a  situation  and  practically  nothing  else  from 
the  Amleth  Saga. 

A  similar  method  of  construction  is,  we  may  point 
out,  suggested  by  Shakespeare  himself  and  in  Hamlet 
also  ;  it  is  Hamlet's  own  method  of  dealing  with  the 
Gonzago  story  ;  he  selects  a  tale  which  resembles  very 
closely  indeed  the  actual  details  of  his  father's  murder, 
he  alters  it  to  make  it  more  like,  and  then,  when  the 


92     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

king  is  filled  with  horror  and  anger,  Hamlet  insists  that 
"  the  story  is  extant  and  writ  in  choice  Italian." 

When  we  remember  that  this  was  exactly  the  method 
which  Shakespeare  and  his  company  were  in  disgrace 
for  employing  in  the  case  of  Richard  II.,  we  must  surely 
admit  that  our  evidence  is  cumulative. 

There  are  many  other  resemblances  to  the  character 
of  James  which  may  also  be  developed. 

Thus,  as  Professor  Bradley  has  pointed  out,  the 
character  of  Hamlet,  notwithstanding  its  curious 
hesitancy  and  indecision,  shows  a  singular  power  of 
acting  in  sudden  crises  with  vigour  and  strength  ;  it  is 
as  of  a  sudden  emergency  let  loose  a  different  strain  in 
his  nature  ;  thus,  when  he  is  on  the  voyage  to  England, 
he  guesses  the  plan  of  the  king  against  him,  and  sub- 
stitutes for  his  own  name  as  the  name  of  the  person  to 
be  executed  those  of  his  two  companions. 

The  type  of  morality  involved  in  this  particular  pro- 
ceeding has  seriously  shocked  some  critics  ;  but  here 
we  need  only  refer  to  it  as  proving  Hamlet's  rapacity 
for  swift  action  in  emergency  ;  it  is  one  of  the  few  things 
that  Shakespeare  takes  directly  from  the  saga,  and  it 
has  something  about  it  of  peculiar  crudity  but  it  serves 
to  show  that  Shakespeare's  full  portrait  of  Hamlet  in- 
cluded this  power  of  swift  action  in  emergency. 

Similar  power  of  swift  and  decisive  action  is,  of  course, 
revealed  in  the  final  scene  when  Hamlet  kills  the  king  ; 
after  all  the  seemingly  endless  delays  he  rushes  to  the 
point  in  a  moment :  "  Then  venom,  do  thy  work,"  and 
the  work  is  done. 

Now   this   peculiar    contradiction,    as   we   have  seen, 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  93 

was  characteristic  also  of  James,   and  was  one  of  the 
things  that  most  astonished  his  contemporaries. 
Burton  says  : 

"  He  was  a  very  timid  and  irresolute  man,  and  yet  on 
more  than  one  occasion  he  behaved  with  an  amount  of  nerv-e 
and  courage  which  the  greatest  of  heroes  could  not  have 
excelled.  .  .  .  People  on  the  other  side  of  the  North  Sea 
speak  of  his  journey  to  bring  home  his  wife  as  a  thing  which 
he  surelj^  would  not  have  attempted  had  he  known  the  perils 
of  the  coast  of  Norway  in  winter.  Whether  he  knew  what 
he  incurred  or  not  on  that  occasion,  we  have  seen  his  con- 
duct on  another '  when  the  peril  was  not  of  his  own  seeking. 
He  held  his  own  in  the  hand-to-hand  struggle  with  young 
Ruthven.  He  reminded  the  young  man  of  the  presence  he 
was  in  and  the  propriety  of  removing  his  hat.  He  coiTected 
the  mysterious  man  in  armour  when  he  was  opening  the 
wrong  window.   .  .   . 

Finally  the  struggle  had  taught  him  that  his  assailant  wore 
secret  armour,  so  he  told  Ramsay  to  strike  below  it.  It  is 
known  that  men  of  a  nei-\-ous  temperament  will,  when  at 
bay  and  desperate,  become  unconscious  of  their  position, 
and  act  from  a  sort  of  mechanical  influence,  as  if  there  were 
no  danger  near  them.  Are  we  so  to  account  for  these  wonder- 
ful instances  of  presence  of  mind  ?  " 

Here,  again,  we  have  a  historical  trait  exactly  similar 
to  a  trait  noticeable  in  Hamlet. 

Another  curious  trait  in  James's  character  was  his 
indifference  to  dress.  His  mother  had  never  been 
careless  in  this  matter  ;  if  not  a  lover  of  splendour  in 
the  same  sense  as  Elizabeth,  she  had  always  been 
decorous  and  dignified  and,  on  appropriate  occasions, 
magnificent. 

James  was  singularly  careless  and  unkinglike,  to  such 

1  The  Cowry  Coinpiracy. 


94     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

an  extent  that  he  excited  the  derision  of  EngHsh  visitors, 
and  was  jeered  at  for  indecorum. 
Sir  Anthony  Weldon  says  : 

"  In  his  diet,  apparel  and  journeys  he  was  very  constant. 
In  his  apparel  so  constant  as  by  his  goodwill  he  would  never 
change  his  clothes  till  almost  worn  out  to  rags  .  .  .  his 
fashion  never  ;  inasmuch  as  one  bringing  to  him  a  hat  of  a 
Spanish  block,  he  cast  it  from  him,  swearing  he  neither  loved 
them  nor  their  fashions.  Another  time,  bringing  him  roses 
on  his  shoes,  he  asked  them  if  thej'  would  make  him  a  ruff- 
footed  dove — one  yard  of  sixpenny  ribbon  serv'^ed  tliat  turn." 

Here,  again,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  the  hkeness  to 
Hamlet :  Hamlet's  indifference  to  dress  and  his  scorn 
for  the  courtiers  to  whom  it  means  so  much. 

Ophelia  speaks  of  him  as  wearing  disordered  apparel  ^ : 

"  Lord  Hamlet  with  his  doublet  all  unbraced  ; 
No  hat  upon  his  head  ;  his  stockings  foul'd 
Ungarter'd  and  dowu-gyved  to  his  ancle  "  ; 

and  Hamlet  shows  the  utmost  contempt  for  Osric  "  the 
water-fly,"  and  for  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern. 

Ofhor  portions  of  vSir  Anthony  Weldon's  description 
may  also  be  quoted  : 

"  He  was  very  witty,  and  has  as  many  read 3',  witty  jests 
as  any  man  living  at  which  he  would  not  smile  himselfe,  but 
deliver  them  in  a  grave  and  serious  manner.  .   .   . 

"  He  would  make  a  great  deal  too  bold  with  God  in  his  passion 
both  in  cursing  and  swearing  and  one  strain  higher  verging 
on  blasphemy  ;  but  would  in  his  better  temper  say  :  '  He 
hoped  God  would  not  impute  them  as  sins  and  lay  them  to 
his  charge,  seeing  they  proceeded  from  passion.'  " 

"  He  was  infinitely  inclined  to  peace." 

"  His  chosen  motto  was  :    '  Beati  pacifici.'  ' 

1  Act  II.,  i. 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  95 

Here,  again,  we  have  traits  which  closely  resemble 
those  of  Hamlet.  Hamlet's  wit  and  his  ready  jests  are 
shown  in  many  scenes.  At  the  same  time  he  does  deUver 
his  jests  in  a  grave  and  serious  manner ;  particularly 
in  his  relations  to  Polonius  and  to  Osric  and  Guildenstem 
he  is  full  of  irony. 

We  have  several  examples  of  his  cursing  with  regard 
to  the  king  ;  he  accuses  himself,^  of  cursing  like  a  whore 
or  a  scullion  : 

"  Must,  like  a  whore,  unpack  my  heart  with  words, 
And  fall  a-cursing,  like  a  very  drab, 
A  scullion !  " 

As  examples  of  James'  witty  saj-ings  Weldon  quotes: 
"  I  wonder  not  so  much  that  women  paint  themselves, 
as  that  when  they  are  painted,  men  can  love  them." 

We  may  compare  Hamlet  ^ :  "  God  has  given  you  one  face 
and  you  make  yourselves  another." 

Again,  James  was  a  student ;  he  was  particularly 
fond,  as  we  have  seen,  of  discoursing  on  theology  and 
philosophy  ;  he  was  also  in  the  habit  of  taking  tablets 
wherever  he  went  to  make  notes  ;  his  tablets  were  always 
on  hand,  and  this  was  a  marked  peculiarity  of  his. 
Hamlet,  also,  has  this  peculiarity,  and  shows  it  in  a 
most  extraordinary  manner  ;  he  even  carries  his  tablets 
with  him  in  his  interview  with  the  ghost,  and  notes  down 
the  fact  that 

•'  A  man  may  smile  and  smile  and  be  a  villain  "  ; 

it  is  surely   the  most   extraordinary  example  recorded 

of  the  use  of  tablets  and  serves  to  show,  at  the  least, 

1  Act  II.,  ii.  »  Act  III.,  i. 


96     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

that  Hamlet  must  have  been  particularly  addicted  to  their 
employment.  In  fact,  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  motive  for 
such  a  bizarre  example  except  to  show  a  personal  trait. 

Hamlet  is  described  by  the  queen  as  being  "fat  and 
scant  of  breath.''  James  also  was  corpulent.  "  He  was 
of  middle  stature,"  says  Sir  Anthony  Weldon,  "  more 
corpulent  through  his  clothes  than  in  reality,  his  body 
yet  fat  enough." 

Hamlet  is  described  as  being  thirty  years  of  age,^ 
for  the  sexton  came  to  his  office  when  young  Hamlet 
was  born  and  says  :  "I  have  been  sexton  here,  man  and 
boy,  for  thirty  years." 

James  was  actually  about  thirty-three  when  Hamlet 
was  produced  ;  it  was  the  custom,  however,  to  state 
age  in  round  numbers,  and  we  occasionally  find  James 
mentioned  as  being  thirty  years  of  age  when  he  came 
to  the  throne.2  This  is  almost  the  only  case  in  Shake- 
speare where  a  definite  age  is  given  to  the  hero,  and  it 
looks  as  if  there  were  a  reason  for  it. 

Again  we  observe  Hamlet's  curious  methods  of  cir- 
cumventing people,  of  finding  out  their  intentions  by 
means  of  tricks  ;  this  is  revealed  most  plainly  in  the 
case  of  Polonius ;  but  the  same  thing  happens  with 
Osric,  with  Rosencrantz,  and  with  Guildenstern,  also 
with  the  king. 

This,  again,  was  a  trait  characteristic  of  James  : 

"  If  he  had  not  that  extreme  timidity  with  which  he  has 
often  been  charged,  he  certainly  shrank  from  facing  dangers  ; 
and  this  shrinking  was  alhed  in  early  life  with  a  habit  of 

1  Act  v.,  i. 

*  '^Qyiox  m5ia.-acQ,  SecretHisiory  of  Four  Last  Monarchs,-p-ah.  1691 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  97 

cautious  fencing  with  questioners,  without  much  regard  for 
truth,  which  was  the  natural  outcome  of  his  position  among 
hostile  parties."  * 

So  Sir  Anthony  Weldon  says  of  him  :  "He  was  very 
crafty  and  cunning  in  petty  things,  as  the  circumventing 
any  great  man." 

This,  surely,  exactly  resembles  the  position  of  Hamlet. 
Hamlet  fences  with  Polonius,  with  the  king,  with  Osric, 
with  Rosencrantz,  and  certainly  wthout  much  regard 
to  the  truth  ;  at  the  same  time,  it  is  justified  to  the  mind 
of  the  audience  by  the  manifest  peril  in  which  he  stands 
and  by  the  fact  that  the  people  who  surround  him  are 
inimical  and  hostile,  intent  on  betraying  him  ;  the 
audience  cordially  approves  of  his  trick  of  outwitting 
his  enemies  by  verbal  subtleties.  Hamlet's  policy  delivers 
him  from  many  perils,  and  James  also  earned  the  reward 
of  a  similar  skill. 

"He  was,"  says  Burton,  "the  first  monarch  of  his  race 
since  the  Jameses  began  who  was  to  be  permitted  to  reach 
the  natural  duration  of  his  days  ;  for  though  his  grandfather 
was  not  slain,  his  end  was  hastened  by  violence.  WTien  we 
trace  the  genealogic  line  of  his  house,  we  find  it  inaugurated 
by  the  murder  of  his  father  and  tlie  ruin  of  his  mother,  ending 
on  the  scaffold.  ..." 

Now  tlie  James  whom  Shakespeare's  audience  were 
contemplating  as  their  future  king  was  the  very  person 
involved  in  these  tragedies  ;  he  had  survived  until  his 
thirties,  alter  being  threatened  with  the  most  serious 
perils  from  and,  indeed,  even  before  his  birth  ;  he  had 
survived  mainlj^  by  the  devotion  of  a  few  most  faithful 

'  DiLt.  Nat.  Biog. 


gS     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

servants  like  the  Erskines,  and,  from  an  extremely  early 
age,  by  his  own  gifts  ;  his  arts  might  savour  of  deceit, 
but  they  surely  were  permissible  when  the  extreme 
danger  and  peril  of  his  situation  was  taken  into  account : 
"  he  was  the  only  one  of  his  race  since  the  Jameses  began 
who  was  permitted  to  reach  the  natural  duration  of  his 
days." 

Could  any  words  be  stronger  ?  Do  they  not  correspond 
with  the  situation  of  Hamlet  who  has  only  one  devoted 
friend,  and  who  is  surrounded  by  every  form  alike  of 
violence  and  of  treachery  ? 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  if  the  character  of  Hamlet  shows 
all  these  resemblances  to  that  of  James  I.,  is  it  to  be 
taken  simply  as  a  portrait  ? 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  Shakespeare's  method 
is  essentially  one  of  portraiture  and,  as  I  shall  attempt 
to  show  later,  I  find  other  elements  in  the  character  of 
Hamlet  besides  what  he  owes  to  James.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  more  accurate  way  of  stating  the  matter  would 
be  to  say  that  Shakespeare  takes  the  main  conception 
of  Hamlet  and  the  situation  of  Hamlet,  from  James  and 
the  situation  of  James. 

The  central  situation,  the  Orestes-like  motive  of  the 
play,  that  the  murderer  of  the  father  has  married  the 
mother,  is  the  situation  of  James ;  the  central  problem 
of  the  play — the  problem  of  the  vacillating  will,  of  the 
man  who  knows  he  ought  to  act  but  cannot  act,  of  the 
man  who  is  aware  that  he  ought  to  punish  but  cannot 
punish — this  is  the  problem  of  James's  character.  That 
hatred  of  bloodshed  which  distinguishes  Hamlet  also, 
throughout    his    life,    distinguished    James ;     again    we 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  99 

have  a  similar  love  of  philosophic  discussion  with  an 
interest  in  spirits  and  the  night-side  of  nature  ;  we  have 
the  same  love  of  disputation  with  everybody  whom  he 
meets,  the  same  parr5dng  of  indiscreet  questions  and 
escaping  from  difficult  situations  by  means  of  verbal 
fence,  the  same  feigning  of  stupidity  which  goes  so  far 
that  he  is  sometimes  suspected  of  madness  ;  we  have  a 
similar  misogyny,  we  have  the  same  curious  power  of 
swift  and  sudden  action  in  crises  notwithstanding  the 
vacillations,  we  have  the  same  power  of  pithy  and  witty 
sayings  ;  we  have  a  similar  carelessness  of  dress  and 
a  similar  dislike  of  perfumed  courtiers  ;  we  have  even 
minor  details  such  as  the  habit  of  swearing,  the  use  of 
tablets,  the  thirty  years  of  age,  the  being  "  fat  and  scant 
of  breath." 

The  point  I  wish  to  insist  on  is  always  that  of  the 
Elizabethan  audience,  and  I  ask,  "  Could  they  fail  to  see 
resemblances  which  are,  on  the  one  hand,  so  deep,  pro- 
found and  vital  and,  on  the  other  hand,  so  curiously 
detailed  ?  " 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  play  of  Hamlet  is  largely  an 
appeal  to  their  interest  in  their  future  king  :  a  use  for 
dramatic  purposes  of  his  history,  his  situation,  and  the 
leading  traits  in  his  character. 

A  rather  curious  point  may  be  noted  here.  Attention 
has  often  been  called  to  the  close  connection  which 
appears  to  exist  between  Hamlei  and  Measure  Jor  Measure. 
Now,  the  character  of  the  Duke  in  Measure  for  Measure 
also  shows  marked  resemblances  to  that  of  James  I.  ; 
but  there  are  two  facts  to  be  carefully  observed  ;  one  is 
that  the  character  of  the  Duke  is  altogether  inferior  to 


100     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

that  of  Hamlet,  it  is  not  nearly  so  noble  or  so  attractive, 
and  the  other  is  that  the  character  of  the  Duke  is 
more  like  that  of  the  historic  James  as  we  usually  con- 
ceive the  latter  to  have  been.  I  have  dwelt  on  this 
elsewhere.^ 

Now,  if  Shakespeare  takes  the  central  conception  of 
both  these  characters  from  the  historic  James,  as  he 
apparently  does,  the  problem  at  once  arises  as  to  why 
these  characters  are  in  themselves  so  different. 

Now  it  appears  to  me  that  the  answer  to  this  is 
probably  threefold.  In  the  first  place,  Shakespeare,  when 
he  wrote  Hamlet  had  not  seen  Jame-~  T.  ;  at  that  dale 
Iht  Scottish  king  had  not  crossed  the  Border  ;  all  that 
was  kno\\Ti  of  him  must  have  been  eagerly  canvassed  ; 
but  the  man  himself  had  never  set  foot  in  England. 
Before  Shakespeare  wrote  Measure  jor  Measure,  both  he 
and  his  audience  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  James, 
and  had  possibly  found  him  less  attractive  on  a  nearer 
view.  In  the  second  place,  Shakespeare  quite  probably 
intended  Hamlet,  in  part  at  least,  as  a  pamphlet  in  fav^onr 
/  of  the  Scottish  succession ;  in  such  circumstances  he 
would  naturally  do  everything  he  could  to  invest  the 
figure  of  the  prince  with  glamour  and  with  charm  ; 
hence  we  have  a  philosophic  and  melancholy  prince, 
seen  against  a  background  of  dark  crimes,  a  prince  whose 
peace-loving  nature  makes  him  abhor  the  duty  of  blood- 
shed laid  upon  him,  an  enigmatic  figure  wayward  and 
strange  yet  full  of  fascination. 

What  are  our  prevailing  feelings  as  we  pursue  the 
course  of  the  play  ?  One  of  them  surely  is  that  we  should 
1  Measure  for  Measure.     (Heath  of  Boston.) 


James  I.  and  Hamlet  loi 

like  to  take  Hamlet  away  from  his  surroundings  which 
are  unworthy  of  him,  away  from  the  Denmark  which 
does  not  merit  him,  and  introduce  him  to  a  nobler 
sphere. 

But  is  not  this  preciselj^  and  exactly  the  feeling  which 
Shakespeare  wished  to  create  ?  It  is,  at  any  rate, 
plausible. 

In  the  third  place,  and  perhaps  most  important  of 
all,  I  do  not  consider  that  Hamlet  is  solely  a  portrait 
of  James  I.  ;  it  seems  to  me  to  contain  much  of  Essex 
as  Essex  was  in  the  last  year  of  his  life.  I  shall  hope 
to  demonstrate  this  later,  and  to  show  how  those  portions 
of  the  character  which  are  psychologically  inconsistent 
with  the  rest  may  have  had  their  origin  in  this  way. 
Here  I  need  only  state  that  I  do  not  think  Hamlet  is  a 
portrait  of  anyone. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"  THE    PLAY    WITHIN    THE    PLAY  "    AND    HAMLET'S    VOYAGE 

TO  ENGLAND 

I  WILL  pass  on  to  a  consideration  of  what  seem  like  further 
historical  resemblances  in  the  drama. 

After  the  Damley  murder,  popular  excitement  showed 
itself  in  continually  representing  the  scene  of  the  murder, 
and  thrusting  these  representations  before  the  eyes  of 
the  people  mainly  concerned.  The  Lords  of  the  Council 
exhibited  a  banner  showing  the  two  dead  men — Darnley 
and  his  servant — beneath  a  tree,  the  little  prince  kneehng 
beside  their  bodies  praying  for  vengeance,  and  a  broken 
branch. 

Burton  says : 

"  A  portion  of  the  natural  excitement  of  the  time  appears 
oddly  enough  to  liave  expended  itself  in  painting.  Several 
representations  seem  to  have  been  made  of  the  discovery 
of  the  bodies,  with  more  or  less  allegorical  machinery  ;  and 
several  other  pictures  made  their  appearance  which,  either 
through  an  allegory  or  an  attempt  to  represent  facts,  gave 
shape  to  the  feelings  of  their  producers.  Caricatures  they 
could  not  be  called,  for  they  had  a  deadly  earnest  about  them 
.  .  .  they  were  deemed  as  signs  of  the  times  so  important 
that  some  of  them  may  now  be  found  among  the  documents 
of  the  period.  There  is  one  in  which  an  attempt  is  made  to 
represent  the  whole  scene  of  the  murder  .  .  .  the  shattered 
house,  the  Hotel  of  the  Hamiltons  beside  it,  the  city  gate 
and  wall,  the  remnant  of  the  old  Kirk-of-the- Field,  the  bodies 
and  the  assembled  crowd  of  citizens." 

102 


(4 


The  Play  Within  the  Play  "         103 


The  banner  used  by  the  Lords  of  the  Council  was 
emploj-ed  at  Carberry  Hill  as  a  kind  of  sacred  symbol ; 
it  was  shown  to  Mary  after  her  captivity,  and  produced 
a  dreadful  impression  upon  her. 

Lingard  says : 

"  An  hour  did  not  elapse  before  Mary  learned  that  she 
was  a  captive  in  the  hands  of  unfeeling  adversaries.  At  her 
entrance  into  the  city  she  was  met  by  a  mob  in  the  highest 
state  of  excitement :  her  ears  were  assailed  with  reproaches 
and  imprecations  ;  and  before  her  eyes  was  waved  a  banner, 
representing  the  body  of  her  late  husband,  and  the  prince  her 
son  on  his  knees  exclaiming,  "Revenge  my  cause,  O  Lord." 
.  .  .  During  the  two  and  tw-enty  hours  that  she  was  confined 
in  her  sohtar\'  prison,  the  unhappy  queen  abandoned  herself 
to  the  terrors  which  her  situation  inspired.  From  the  street 
she  was  repeatedly  seen  at  the  window  almost  in  a  state  of 
nudity  ;  and  was  often  heard  to  call  on  the  citizens  conjuring 
them  to  aid  and  deliver  their  sovereign  from  the  cruelty  of 
traitors." 

Here,  again,  we  surely  have  a  very  close  likeness  to  the 
"play  within  the  play"  motive  of  Hamlet.  Hamlet 
desires  to  reconstruct  the  murder  before  the  very  eyes 
of  the  guilty  king  ;  since  the  w'hole  drama  is  a  stage 
presentation  also,  how  else  could  it  be  shown  ?  The 
idea  is  exactly  and  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  the 
Scottish  banners  and  paintings  ;  that  of  constructing 
graphic  representations  of  the  murder  and  thrusting 
them  before  the  eyes  of  the  guilty  parties.  We  may 
observe,  also,  that  Hamlet's  play  is  largely  a  dumb 
show. 

Hamlet  cries,  "The  play's  the  thing  wherein  I'll  catch 
the  conscience  of  the  king,"  and  the  Scottish  accusers 
exhibited  the  dreadful  scene  on  the  banner  in  precisely 


104     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

this  way,  and  with  this  motive,  to  the  persons  whose 
guilt  was  suspected  but  of  whose  participation  they 
were  not  assured,  and  the  result  was  precisely  the  same 
betrayal  of  grief  and  horror  and  anguish. 

Nothing  like  this  play  scene  appears  in  either  Saxo 
Grammaticus  or  in  the  Hystorie  oj  Hamhlei,  though  it  may 
have  done  in  Kyd's  play  ;  but,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  anything  anterior  to  the  supposed  date  of  that  play 
(1587  or  1589)  may  have  been  used  by  him  as  readily  as 
by  Shakespeare,  and  the  Scottish  parallel  certainly  might 
have  been  employed.  If  Shakespeare  really  wished  to 
dramatise  history  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  he  could  have 
arranged  the  dramatisation  better  or  more  effectively,  the 
essence  being  the  scenic  representation  which  forces  the 
guilty  to  betray  themselves. 

I  do  not  think  this  is  the  only  historical  reference  in 
the  part  of  Hamlet  which  relates  to  the  players ;  but  the 
rest  will  have  its  due  study  later. 

Another  historic  parallel  to  be  found  in  Hamlet  is  his 
voyage  to  England.  This,  of  course,  occurs  in  the 
original  saga,  but  Shakespeare  has  changed  its  conclusion. 
In  Saxo,  Hamlet  is  sent  to  England  with  a  secret  message 
to  the  king,  desiring  him  to  put  Hamlet  to  death  ;  Hamlet, 
however,  suspects  the  deceit,  alters  the  message,  and 
substitutes  one  desiring  the  king  of  England  to  give 
his  daughter  in  marriage  to  the  noble  youth  ;  "  Nor 
was  he  satisfied  with  removing  from  himself  the  sentence 
of  death,  and  passing  the  peril  on  to  others,  but  added 
an  entreaty  that  the  king  of  Britain  would  grant  his 
daughter  in  marriage  to  a  youth  of  great  judgment  whom 
he  was  sending  them." 


"The  Play  Within  the  Play"         105 

In  the  Hystorie  0/  HamUei,  we  have  exactly  the  same 
situation.     All  takes  effect  as  Hamlet  has  planned. 

The  King,  having  witnessed  many  extraordinary  ex- 
amples of  Hamlet  s  wisdom,  gives  him  his  daughter  and 
Hamlet  returns  to  his  own  country,  takes  his  revenge,  and 
ultimately,  of  course,  claims  his  British  bride  : 

"  Then  the  king  adored  the  wisdom  of  Amleth  as  though 
it  were  inspired  and  gave  him  his  daughter  to  \vife  ;  accepting 
his  bare  word  as  though  it  were  a  witness  from  the  skies." 

Now,  in  the  saga,  the  real  purport  of  this  journey  to 
England  is  to  get  Hamlet  married  to  an  English  princess  ; 
Shakespeare  removes  this  motive  altogether,  for  his 
Hamlet  does  not  many,  nevertheless  he  retains  the 
voyage.     There  is  thus  a  very  curious  effect  produced. 

Hamlet,  who  knows  the  designs  the  king  has  against 
his  life,  who  knows  that  he  ought  to  pursue  his  task  of 
vengeance  and  punishment,  nevertheless  allows  himself 
to  be  hurried  out  of  the  kingdom  on  a  voj'age  which  he 
must  have  been  aware  was  excessively  dangerous,  from 
which  he  might  never  have  returned.  As  more  than 
one  critic  has  pointed  out  this  is  most  unfair  to  his  un- 
fortunate country  ;  he  leaves  it  in  the  power  of  a  villain 
while  he  allows  himself  to  go,  without  any  real  necessity, 
on  a  most  perilous  expedition  from  w^hich  he  is  only  saved 
by  chance. 

The  effect  is  a  curious  mingling  of  hesitancy  and  rash- 
ness which  is  one  of  the  difficulties  of  Hamlet's  character 
and  of  the  play.  The  whole  adventure  is  without  the 
strong,  obvious  and  clear  motive  given  in  the  saga.  Why 
is  it  retained  ?  The  answer  would  seem  to  be  "  because 
there  is  a  real  historical  parallel  and  because  this  historical 


io6     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

parallel  did  genuinely  supply  an  important  element  in 
the  character  Shakespeare  was  studpng." 

James  had  received  the  promise  of  Anne  of  Denmark 
as  his  bride ;  the  marriage  by  proxy  was  solemnised 
in  August  1589.  A  brilliant  little  fleet  was  appointed 
for  conveying  the  bride  home  to  Scotland  ;  but  it  was 
driven  by  storms  into  a  port  of  Norway  ;  James  thereupon 
determined  to  set  out  himself  to  bring  home  his  bride, 
and  actually  did  so  ;  the  voyage  at  that  time  of  the  year 
v/as  exceedingly  dangerous,  and  the  king's  return  was 
;>-        long  delayed  by  storms. 

In  the  meantime,  the  younger  Bothwell  had  been  left 
to  his  own  devices  in  the  kingdom. 

Elizabeth  blamed  James  as  severely  for  his  rashness 
in  this  episode  as  modern  commentators  have  blamed 
Hamlet : 

"  I  do  believe  that  God  hath  of  his  goodness  more  than  your 
hide,  prospered  to  good  end  your  untimely  and,  if  I  dare  tell 
you  the  truth,  evil-seasoned  journey,  yet  I  may  no  longer  stay 
but  let  you  know.  .  .  .  And  now  to  talk  to  you  freely  as  paper 
may  utter  conceit.  Accept  my  hourly  care  for  your  broken 
country,  too,  too  much  infected  with  the  malady  of  strange 
humours  and  to  receive  no  medicine  so  well  compounded  as 
if  the  owner  make  the  mixture  appropriated  to  the  quality 
of  the  sickness.  Know  you  my  dear  brother,  for  certain,  that 
those  ulcers  that  were  too  much  skinned  with  the  '  doulce- 
ness  "  of  your  applications  were  but  falsely  shaded  and  were 
filled  within  with  much  venom  as  hath  burst  out  since  your 
departure  with  most  lewd  offers  to  another  king  to  enter 
your  land."^ 

Shakespeare  has  removed  the  clear,  effective,  and 
powerful  motive  which  the  voyage  had  in  the  saga.     Yet 

1  Letter  XXXIV. 


"  The  Play  Within  the  Play  "  107 

he  retains  the  incident.  Why  ?  It  certainly  looks  as 
if  he  had  retained  it  as  a  temperamental  trait  because 
it  shows  a  power  of  vigorous  action  in  emergency  with, 
at  the  same  time,  a  certain  rashness  and  weakness  in  the 
very  circumstances  which  enable  the  vigour  to  be  shown. 

It  is  interesting  also  to  observe  that  the  mysterious 
letters  have  a  historical  parallel  in  the  affair  known  as 
the  "  Spanish  blanks "  which  occurred  shortly  after 
James'  voyage. 

Burton  says : 

"  In  the  same  year — 1592 — occurred  the  incident  called 
the  "  Spanish  blanks  "  which  disturbed  tlie  zealous  Presby- 
terian party  to  an  extent  not  easily  realised  by  looking  at 
the  scanty  materials  by  which  it  was  produced.  But  in  fact 
it  was  the  mystery  excited  by  imperfect  evidence  that  created 
suspicion  and  terror.  It  was  suspected  tliat  a  man  named 
Kerr,  who  was  leaving  Scotland  by  the  West  coast,  had 
dangerous  documents  in  his  custody.  The  minister  of  Paisley, 
hearing  of  this,  gathered  some  sturdy  parishioners  who 
seized  and  searched  Kerr.  They  took  from  him  eight  papers 
called  "  the  blanks."  Each  had  upon  it  the  concluding 
courtesies  of  a  letter  addressed  to  royalties.  "  De  vostre 
majestic  tres  humble  et  tres  obesant  servitor,"  and  this  was 
followed  by  one  or  more  signatures." 

Otherwise  these  slips  of  paper  had  "  no  designation 
on  the  back,  nor  declaration  of  the  causes  for  which  they 
were  sent,  but  blank  and  white  paper  on  both  sides  except 
the  said  subscriptions."  They  were  signed  by  the 
Catholic  earls :  Huntly,  Errol,  Angus,  etc.  The  con- 
clusion arrived  at  was  that  the  blanks  were  intended  to 
be  filled  up  by  certain  Jesuit  emissaries  and  were,  when 
so  filled,  to  form  an  invitation  to  the  king  of  Spain  to 
send  men  to  Scotland  to  assist  in  a  Catholic  rising. 


io8     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

James  behaved  in  this  affair  according  to  his  usual 
custom,  and  was  particularly  merciful  to  the  offenders. 
Elizabeth,  as  her  letters  show,  was  greatly  enraged,  and 
once  more  demanded  justice,  but  James  punished  no 
one. 

Now  here,  again,  one  notices  a  marked  difference  be- 
tween Shakespeare  and  his  saga  source.  In  the  saga  there 
is  no  question  whatever  of  Amleth  being  on  good  terms 
with  the  king  after  the  treacherous  embassy  ;  having 
discovered  the  truth,  Amleth  returns  to  Denmark  and 
proceeds  at  once  to  his  revenge.  He  sets  the  banqueting 
hall  on  fire,  bums  most  of  the  courtiers  to  death  in  their 
drunken  sleep,  and  cuts  off  the  head  of  the  Idng  in  his 
own  bedchamber. 

Shakespeare's  ever-forgiving  Hamlet,  however,  once 
more  places  himself  on  amiable  terms  with  Claudius 
and,  for  the  last  time,  attempts  friendship ;  exactly  in 
the  same  way  James  once  more  forgave  the  Catholic  earls 
and  Bothwell. 

Once  again  we  have  a  historic  parallel. 


CHAPTER  V 

POLONIUS,    RIZZIO,    AND   BURLEIGH 

Other  portions  of  Hamlet  which  appear  to  contain 
historical  reminiscences  are  the  scenes  connected  with 
Polonius. 

If  the  account  of  the  murder,  for  instance,  be  carefully 
compared  with  the  saga  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  Scottish 
history  on  the  other,  it  will  be  found,  I  think,  that  it 
shows  hardly  any  resemblances  to  the  one  but  very  close 
resemblances  to  the  other. 

The  saga  reads  : 

"  Feng  was  purposely  to  absent  himself,  pretending  affairs 
of  great  import.  Amleth  should  be  closeted  alone  with  his 
mother  in  her  chamber  ;  but  a  man  should  first  be  com- 
missioned to  place  himself  in  a  concealed  part  of  the  room 
and  listen  heedfully  to  what  they  talked  about.  For,  if  the 
son  had  any  wits  at  all,  he  would  not  hesitate  to  speak  out 
in  the  hearing  of  his  mother  or  fear  to  trust  himself  to  the 
fidelity  of  her  who  bore  him.  The  speaker  .  .  .  zealously 
professed  himself  as  the  agent  of  the  eavesdropping.  Feng 
rejoiced  at  the  scheme  and  departed  on  pretence  of  a  long 
journey.  Now  he  who  had  given  this  counsel  repaired  privily 
to  the  roorn  where  Amleth  was  shut  up  with  his  mother,  and 
lay  down  skulking  in  the  straw.  But  Amleth  had  his  antidote 
for  the  treachery.  Afraid  of  being  heard  by  some  eaves- 
dropper he  at  first  resorted  to  his  usual  imbecile  ways  and 
crowed  like  a  noisy  cock,  beating  his  arms  together  to 
mimic  the  flapping  of  wings.  Then  he  mounted  the  straw 
and  began  to  swing  his  body  and  jump  again  and  again, 

109 


no     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

wishing  to  try  if  aught  lurked  there  in  hiding.  Feeling  a 
lump  beneath  his  feet  he  drove  his  sword  into  the  spot  and 
impaled  him  who  lay  hid.  Then  he  dragged  him  from  his 
concealment  and  slew  him.  Then,  cutting  his  body  into 
morsels,  he  seethed  it  in  boiling  water  and  flung  it  through 
the  mouth  of  an  open  sewer  for  the  swine  to  eat,  bestrewing 
the  stinking  mire  with  his  helpless  limbs.   .  .  . 

"  WTien  Feng  returned  nowhere  could  he  find  the  man  who 
had  suggested  the  treacherous  espial  ;  he  searched  for  him 
long  and  carefully,  but  none  said  they  had  seen  him  any- 
where. Amleth,  among  others,  was  asked  in  jest  if  he  had 
come  across  any  trace  of  him,  and  replied  that  the  man  had 
gone  to  the  sewer  but  had  fallen  to  its  bottom  and  been 
stifled  by  the  floods  of  filth,  and  that  then  he  had  been 
devoured  by  the  swine  that  came  up  all  about  the  place.' 

The  Hystorie  of  Hamhlct  gives  substantially  the  same 
tale  ;  it  says  that  Hamlet  cut  the  body  into  pieces,  boiled 
it,  and  then  cast  it  into  an  open  vault  or  privy,  so  that 
it  might  serve  as  food  for  the  pigs. 

Now,  here  there  is  one  point  of  resemblance  with 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet ;  that  is  the  motive  given  to  the 
eavesdropper  who  is  to  report  Hamlet's  confidences 
to  his  mother,  but  all  the  rest  is  entirely  unhke. 

What  has  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  in  common  with  this 
grotesque  clown  who  crows  like  a  cock,  and  with  this 
hideous  barbarian  who  boils  the  body  of  his  victim  and 
then  throws  it  through  a  sewer  to  the  pigs  ? 

Turn  now  to  Scottish  history  and  see  what  it  says  of 
the  murder  of  Rizzio  : 

Signor  David  became  the  queen's  inseparable  companion 
in  the  council  room  and  the  cabinet.  At  all  hours  of  the  day 
he  was  to  be  found  with  her  in  her  apartments.   .   .  .     He 


'  Saxo  Grammaticus. 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burlrigh         iii 

was  often  alone  with  her  until  midnight.  He  had  the  control 
of  all  the  business  of  the  state.  .  .  .  Darnley  went  one  night 
between  twelve  and  one  to  the  queen's  room.  Finding  the 
door  locked  he  knocked,  but  could  get  no  answer  .  .  .  after 
a  long  time  the  Queen  drew  the  bolt  ...  he  entered  and  she 
appeared  to  be  alone  but,  on  searching,  he  found  Rizzio  lialf- 
dressed  in  a  closet.  .  .  .  Darnley's  word  was  not  a  good  one, 
but  that  was  what  he  said.  .  .  .  Darnlej^  desired  the  dramatic 
revenge  of  killing  Rizzio  in  the  queen's  presence.  .  .  .  The 
conspirators  ascended  the  winding  stairs  from  Darnley's 
room  .  .  .  Davnley  entered  .  .  .  supper  was  on  the  table 
.   .   .  the  queen  asked  Darnley  if  he  h  id  supped."  ^ 

So  the  scene  proceeds  ;  Rizzio  calls  loudly  for  help, 
but  he  is  stabbed  ;  Darnley's  dagger  is  left  in  the  body 
so  that  he  may  be  clearly  incriminated,  the  body  itself 
is  dragged  down  a  staircase  and  flung  upon  a  chest.  .  .  . 
The  queen  lamented  bitterly  for  him  :  "  Poor  David  ! 
Good  and  faithful  servant.  May  God  have  mercy  on 
your  soul." 

Afterwards,  we  may  remember,  Darnley  was  recon- 
ciled to  the  queen  and  showed  or  affected  to  show  bitter 
repentance  f(jr  his  share  in  the  nnirder.  The  Lords 
Politic  sat  for  several  days  to  consider  the  murder  ; 
but,  since  they  feared  to  accuse  anyone,  nothing  was 
done. 

Now,  here,  we  surely  have  far  closer  resemblances 
to  llie  scene  in  Hamlet  though,  as  in  the  other  parallels, 
the  scene  is  dramatised  by  isolating  and  concentrating  : 
two  scenes  are  run  into  one,  the  scene  where  Darnley 
alone  discovered  (or  said  he  discovered)  Rizzio,  and  the 
scene  of  the  murder. 

'  Fronde. 


112     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

We  have  the  discovery  by  the  hero  alone,  we  have 
the  stabbing  with  the  hero's  weapon  in  the  dead  man's 
body.  We  have  the  queen's  bitter  lament  for  the  "  good 
old  man  "  ^  and  for  the  "  rash  and  bloody  deed."  Hamlet 
disposes  of  the  body  "  by  a  staircase,"  and  the  staircase 
played  a  principal  part  in  the  Rizzio  murder. 

We  may  also  observe  that  Hamlet's  gruesome  remark 
about  Polonius  being  "  at  supper,  not  where  he  eats 
but  where  he  is  eaten,"  ^  seems  like  a  macabre  reference 
to  the  Rizzio  murder  where  the  victim  also  was  found 
"  at  supper  "  ;  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  remark 
that  "  a  certain  convocation  of  politic  worms  are  e'en 
at  him,"  which,  again,  looks  like  a  macabre  reference 
to  the  wearisome  and  futile  sittings  of  the  "  Lords 
Politic "  in  considering  the  murder.  Any  of  these 
references  might  be  accidental  if  it  stood  alone  ;  it  is, 
as  always,  the  combination  which  is  the  convincing 
thing. 

We  may  observe  that  the  intimacy  of  Polonius  with 
the  queen  is  really  close  ;  he  is  not,  like  the  eavesdropper 
in  the  saga,  a  person  with  whom  she  has  no  intimate 
concern  ;  he  is  a  genuinely  trusted  councillor. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Rizzio  murder  belongs  to 
Darnley  and  not  to  James  I.,  but  it  had  a  close  and 
vital  connection  with  the  group  of  historic  events,  and 
was  in  itself,  a  thing  which  probably  determined  the 
choice,  magnificent  dramatic  material. 

We  may  also  observe  that  the  whole  scene  is,  as  it 
were,  set  apart  in  the  play  and  stands  detached  from  the 
main  action.     There  is,  again,  the  statement  that  Hamlet 
1  Act  IV.,  i.  2  Act  IV.,  iii. 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh         113 

repents  his  deed,  for,  according  to  the  queen  "  he  weeps 
for  what  is  done/*  and  she,  at  any  rate,  desires  to  shield 
and  protect  him.  All  this  is  foreign  to  the  saga,  but 
does  occur  in  the  history.  Darnley  professed  penitence 
and  the  queen  did  protect  him.  I  may  also  point  out 
that  the  other  reference  to  the  Rizzio  murder  occurred 
in  the  first  scene  where  the  ghost  appeared  to  Hamlet, 
and  in  this'  scene  with  the  queen  the  ghost  appears 
again.  There  is,  apparently,  a  logical  and  dramatic 
connection  between  the  two. 

Moberley  has  a  note  on  the  lines : 

"  Indeed  this  councillor 
Is  now  most  still,  most  secret  and  most  grave 
Who  was  in  life  a  loolisli  prating  knave." 

He  observes  that  they  are  almost  exactly  the  same  words 
used  by  the  porter  at  Holyrood,  when  Rizzio's  body 
was  placed  on  a  chest  near  his  lodge. 

But  we  do  not,  I  think,  dispose  of  the  historical 
resemblances  in  the  character  of  Polonius  by  sajdng  that 
his  death  resembles  that  of  Rizzio's.  It  has  more  than 
once  been  pointed  out  that  he  shows  a  hkeness  to 
Burleigh,  and  this,  also,  appears  to  be  true.  We  may 
observe  that  Burleigh  died  in  the  year  1598,  shortly 
before  Hamlet  was  produced ;  he  had  died  at  the 
advanced  age  of  seventy-eight,  and  was  thought  by  many 
to  have  been  in  his  dotage  ;  even  Elizabeth  in  her  wrath 
occasionally  accused  him  of  dotage.^ 

Burleigh  had  been  the  bitter  enemy  of  Shakespeare's 

^  Martin  Hume,  Burleigh. 
H 


114     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

patrons — Essex  and  Southampton,  and  it  was  generally 
believed  that  the  Cecils  between  them  had  lured  Essex 
to  his  ruin.  The  popular  mind  also  ascribed  to  Burleigh 
enmity  against  the  Scottish  succession. 

Now,  if  Burleigh  were  the  bitter  enemy  of  Shakespeare's 
friends,  if  he  were  very  generally  unpopular  and  mis- 
trusted, if  he  were  believed  to  be  an  enemy  to  the 
Scottish  succession,  Shakespeare  might  very  naturally 
represent  him  as  another  of  the  main  enemies  of  his 
philosophic  prince,  and  that  is  what  he  appears  to  have 
done,  for  the  resemblances  between  Burleigh  and  Polonius 
seem  too  great  to  be  ascribed  to  any  form  of  accident. 

In  the  first  place  we  may  note  that  the  original  form 
of  the  name  was  Corambis  and  not  Polonius,  and  that 
Corambis  does  suggest  Cecil  and  Burleigh. 

Polonius,  throughout  the  play,  stands  isolated  as  the 
one  person  who  does  really  enjoy  the  royal  confidence; 
he  is  an  old  man,  and  no  other  councillor  of  equal  rank 
anjrwhere  appears.  This  corresponds  almost  precisely 
with  the  position  held  by  Burleigh ;  he  had,  for  the  greater 
part  of  his  reign,  been  among  Elizabeth's  chief  councillors, 
and  the  death  of  Walsingham  and  others  left  him  isolated 
in  her  service,  surviving  almost  all  the  men  of  his  own 
generation, 

Cecil  was  a  man  of  learning,  and  Polonius  obviously 
desires  to  be  esteemed  as  such.  Cecil  had  been  closely 
associated  with  some  of  the  chief  classical  scholars  of 
the  day,  Cheke  for  example,  and  Polonius  makes  a  boast 
of  his  classical  learning  :  ^  "  Seneca  cannot  be  too  heavy, 
nor  Plautus  too  light," 

>  Act  II.,  ii. 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh        115 

Cecil,  in  his  youth,  had  played  a  prominent  part  in 
Cambridge,  and  was  proud  to  remain  connected  with  the 
university,  and  Polonius  also  alludes  to  his  hfe  in  the 
university  and  his  taking  part  in  the  university  plays.* 
"  I  did  enact  Julius  Caesar;  I  was  killed  i'  the  Capitol ; 
Brutus  killed  me." 

We  may  also  remember,  in  this  connection,  that  when 
William  Cecil  died,  he  was  still  Chancellor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge  ;  there  can  be  no  doubt  both  from 
Hamlet's  question,  and  from  his  reply,  that  Polonius 
liked  to  associate  himself  with  the  university  as  Cecil  did. 

Cecil  had  one  romance,  and  one  romance  only,  in  his 
life,  that  was  when  he  married  a  penniless  bride — Mary 
Cheke,  the  sister  of  the  great  Greek  scholar  ;  the  marriage 
was  vehemently  opposed  by  his  family,  but  Cecil  es- 
poused her  in  secret. 

Now,  according  to  his  own  account,  Polonius  also 
had  experienced  a  romantic  love-affair  in  his  youth : 
*'  truly  in  my  youth  I  suffered  much  extremity  for  love, 
very  near  this."  2 

This  particular  speech  has  nearly  always  been  con- 
sidered as  a  pure  absurdity  ;  but  it  would  be  even  more 
ironically  amusing  if  the  audience  believed  it  literally 
true. 

Again,  Burleigh's  eldest  son — Thomas  Cecil — was  a 
youth  of  very  wayward  life ;  his  licentiousness  and 
irregularity  occasioned  liis  father  great  distress  and, 
during  his  residence  in  Paris,  his  father  wrote  letters 
to  him  full  of  wise  maxims  for  his  guidance  ;  he  also 
instructed  friends  to  watch  over  him,  and  bring  him 
1  Act  III.,  u.  »  Act  II.,  ii. 


Ii6     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

reports  of  his  son's  behaviour.  So  Polonius  has  a  son 
— Laertes — whom  he  suspects  of  irregular  hfe  ;  Polonius 
provides  that  his  son,  when  he  goes  to  Paris,  shall  be 
carefully  watched,  and  that  reports  on  his  behaviour 
shall  be  prepared  by  Reynaldo. 

I  will  place  side  by  side  the  parallels  that  seem  to 
me  most  pertinent,  pointing  out  first  that  there  is  no 
resemblance  whatever  in  the  saga  source. 

"  Amidst  his  manifold  public  anxieties  Cecil  had  to  bear 
his  share  of  private  trouble.  .  .  .  Thomas,  his  only  son  by 
)us  first  marriage  with  Mary  Cheke  was  now  (1561)  a  young 
man  of  twent}',  and  in  order  that  he  might  receive  the  polish 
fitting  to  the  heir  of  a  great  personage,  his  father  consulted 
Sir  Nicholas  Throgmorton,  the  Ambassador  in  Paris,  in  the 
Spring  of  1561,  with  the  idea  of  sending  him  thither.  A 
subsequent  recommendation  of  Thomas  Windebank,  the 
young  man's  governor,  to  the  effect  that  it  would  be  well  to 
accept  Throgmorton's  offer,  although  Sir  WiUiam  Cecil  was 
loath  to  trespass  on  his  friend's  hospitality,  "  in  order  that  the 
youth  might  learn,  not  only  at  table  but  otherwise,  according 
to  his  estate,"  leads  us  to  the  conclusion  that  Thomas  Cecil 
had  not  hitherto  been  an  apt  scholar  .  .  .  from  the  first  it 
was  seen  that  the  father  was  misgiving  and  anxious.  Cecil 
was  a  reserved  man,  full  of  public  affairs  ;  but  this  corre- 
spondence proves  that  he  was  also  a  man  of  deep  family 
affections,  and  above  all,  that  he  regarded  with  horror  the 
idea  that  any  scandal  should  attach  to  his  honoured  name. 
In  his  first  letter  to  his  son  he  strikes  the  note  of  distrust.  .  .  . 
"  He  wishes  him  God's  blessing,  but  how  he  inclines  himself 
to  deserve  it  he  knows  not."  None  of  his  son's  three  letters, 
he  explains,  makes  any  mention  of  the  expense  he  is  incuning. 
.  .  .  To  Windebank  the  father  is  more  outspoken.  How 
are  they  spending  their  time,  he  asks,  and  heartily  prays  that 
Thomas  may  serve  God  with  fear  and  reverence.  But 
Thomas  seems  to  have  done  nothing  of  the  sort ;  for,  in 
nearly  every  letter,  Windebank  urges  Sir  William  to  repeat 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh        117 

his  injunctions  about  prayer  to  his  son.  .  .  .  But  the  scape- 
grace paid  Uttle  heed.  .  .  .  Rumour  of  his  ill-behaviour 
reached  Sir  William,  not  at  first  from  Windebank.  In  March 
1562  an  angry  and  indignant  letter  went  from  Cecil  to  his 
son,  reproaching  him  for  his  bad  conduct.  There  was  no 
amendment  he  said,  and  all  who  came  to  Paris  gave  him  the 
character  of  "a  dissolute,  slothful,  negligent  and  careless 
young  man  and  the  letter  is  signed  '  your  father  of  an  un- 
worthy son.'  " 

A  week  later  Cecil  wTites  :  "  Windebank,  I  am  here 
used  to  pains  and  troubles,  but  none  creep  so  near  my 
heart  as  does  this  of  m}^  lewd  son.  .  .  .  Good  Windebank, 
consult  my  dear  friend  Sir  Nicholas  Throgmorton,  to  whom 
I  have  referred  the  whole.  .  .  .  If  ye  shall  come  with 
him  {i.e.  Thomas)  to  cover  the  shame,  let  it  appear  to 
be  by  reason  of  the  troubles  there."  ^ 

We  may  compare  this  with  Hamlet  ^ : 

Pol,    Give  him  this  money  and  these  notes,  Reynaldo. 

Rey.    I  will,  my  lord. 

Pol.    You  shall  do  marvellous  wisely,  good  Reynaldo, 
Before  you  visit  him,  to  make  inquire 
Of  his  behaviour. 

Rey.    My  lord,  I  did  intend  it. 

Pol.    Marry,  well  said  ;  very  well  said.     Look  you,  sir, 
Inquire  me  first  what  Danskers  are  in  Paris  ; 
And  how,  and  who,  what  means,  and  where  they  keep, 

.  .  .  and  finding 
By  tliis  encompassment  and  drift  of  question 
That  they  do  know  my  son,  come  you  more  nearer, 
Tlian  your  particular  demands  will  touch  it: 

.  .  .  put  on  him 
What  forgeries  you  please  ;   marry,  none  so  rank 
As  may  dishonour  him  ;   take  heed  of  that; 


'  Martin  Hume,  Burleigh.  *  Act  II.,  i. 


ii8     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

But,  sir,  such  wanton  wild  and  usual  slips 
As  are  companions  noted  and  most  known 
To  youth  and  liberty. 

Rey.     As  gaming,  my  lord. 

Pol.     Ay,  or  drinking,  fencing,  swearing,  quarrelling, 
Drabbing:  you  may  go  so  far," 

Now,  surely  we  notice  here  an  essentially  similar 
situation  to  the  one  given  in  Burleigh's  hfe  ;  the  father 
an  immaculate,  all-wise  councillor  at  home,  the  spend- 
thrift son  leading  a  licentious  life  in  Paris,  and  anyone 
who  knows  the  father  encouraged  to  give  reports  on  the 
son's  behaviour  which  the  father  anticipates,  with  only 
too  much  justice,  will  almost  certainly  be  evil  reports. 

Cecil  wrote  a  number  of  maxims  for  the  guidance  of 
his  son,  and  these  maxims  show  a  remarkable  likeness 
to  those  given  by  Polonius  to  Laertes. 

"  If  his  own  conduct  was  ruled,"  says  Martin  Hume,  "  as 
some  of  his  actions  were  by  the  maxims  wliich  in  middle  age 
he  had  laid  down  for  his  favourite  son,  he  must  have  been  a 
marvel  of  prudence  and  wisdom.  Like  the  usual  recommenda- 
tions of  age  to  youth,  many  of  these  precepts  simply  inculcate 
iiiO(feration,  religion,  virtue  and  other  obviously  good  qualities  ; 
but  here  and  there  Cecil's  own  philosophy  of  life  comes  out, 
and  some  of  the  reasons  for  his  success  are  exhibited.  "  Let 
thy  hospitality  be  moderate  .  .  .  rather  plentiful  than 
sparing,  for  I  never  knew  any  man  grow  poor  by  keeping  an 
orderly  table.  .  .  .  Beware  thou  spendest  not  more  than 
three  of  four  parts  of  thy  revenue,  and  not  above  a  third 
part  of  that  in  thy  house." 

"  Beware  of  being  surety  for  thy  best  friends  ;  he  that 
payeth  another  man's  debts  secketh  his  own  decay." 

"  Be  sure  to  keep  some  great  man  thy  friend,  but  trouble 
him  not  with  trifles  ;  compliment  him  often  with  many,  yet 
small  gifts." 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh         119 

"  Towards  thy  superiors  be  humble,  yet  generous  ;    with 
thine  equals  familiar  yet  respectful ;    towards  these  inferiors      J 
show  much  humanity  and  some  familiarity,  as  to  bow  the 
body,  stretch  forth  the  hand  and  to  uncover  the  head." 

"  Trust  not  any  man  with  thy  hfe,  credit  or  estate,  for  it  is 
mere  folly  for  a  man  to  entrust  himself  to  his  friend." 

We  may  compare  with  this  Polonius  ^  : 

"  Be  thou  famiUar  but  by  no  means  vulgar. 
Those  friends  thou  hast  and  their  adoption  tried, 
Grapple  them  to  thy  soul  with  hoops  of  steel ; 
But  do  not  dull  thy  psalm  with  entertainment. 
Of  each  new-hatch'd,  unfledged  comrade.    Beware 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel ;   but  being  in, 
Bear't,  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee. 
Give  every  man  thy  ear,  but  few  thy  voice. 

"  Neither  a  borrower  nor  a  lender  be, 
For  loan  oft  loses  both  itself  and  friend, 
And  borrowing  dulls  the  edge  of  husbandry." 

Martin  Hume  sums  up  Burleigh's  proverbs  by  sa^dng  : 

"  Such  maxims  as  these  evidently  enshrine  much  of  his  own 
temper,  and  throughout  his  career  he  rarely  seems  to  have 
violated  them.  His  was  a  selfish  and  ungenerous  gospel, 
but  a  prudent  and  circumspect  one." 

Exactly  the  same  might  be  said  of  Shakespeare's 
Polonius,  This  particular  fact,  that  the  maxims  of 
Polonius  strongly  resemble  those  of  Burleigh — was 
pointed  out  by  George  Russell  French  in  1869. 

Again,  one  observes  the  omnipresence  of  Polonius ; 
he  manages  everything,  he  interferes  in  everything,  he 

'  Act  I.,  iii. 


120     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

keeps  everything  in  his  own  hands.     This  was  certainly 
true  also  of  Cecil,  who  had  a  passion  for  detail : 

"  Everything  seemed  to  pass  through  his  hands.  No  matter 
was  too  small  or  too  large  to  claim  attention.  His  household 
biographer  says  of  him  that  he  worked  incessantly,  except 
at  meal  times  when  he  unbent  and  chatted  wittily  to  his 
friends,  but  never  of  business."  ^ 

Cecil  had  a  peculiar  method  of  drawing  up  documents 
touching  matters  of  state  :  thus  he  would  consider  all 
the  reasons  for  and  against  a  particular  action,  stating 
its  advantages  and  disadvantages  in  the  most  elaborate 
way  and  with  meticulous  care  of  detail.  It  is  in  just 
the  same  close  and  elaborate  way  that  Polonius  displays 
his  ideas  before  the  king.  Everv'thing  is  surveyed,  not 
a  detail  omitted.^ 

"  He  repulsed — a  short  tale  to  make  .  .  . 
Fell  into  a  sadness,  then  into  a  fast. 
Thence  to  a  watch,  thence  into  a  weakness. 
Thence  to  a  lightness,  and,  by  this  declension, 
Into  the  madness  wherein  now  he  raves. 
And  all  we  mourn  for." 

This  is  an  admirable  satire  on  the  type  of  man  who, 
like  Cecil,  prides  himself  on  the  logical,  methodical  de- 
velopment of  detail. 

Cecil  was  emphatically  a  man  of  peace ;  in  politics 
it  was  his  great  aim  to  keep  out  of  war  ;  in  private  life 
he  disliked  the  idea  of  a  military  career  for  his  son 
Thomas,  and  he  was  a  person  with  whom  everybody 
found  it  very  difficult  to  quarrel  ;  he  kept  the  peace 
with  Leicester,  and  with  Essex  in  spite  of  infinite  pro- 
1  Martin  Hume.  "  Act  II.,  ii. 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh         121 

vocation  ;  Essex,  especially,  was  given  to  taunting  and 
tormenting  him  ;  but,  when  Cecil  was  unable  to  avoid 
a  quarrel  in  any  other  way,  he  was  accustomed  to 
develop  a  timely  fit  of  gout,  and  retire  to  his  own  house. 

We  see  this  same  trait  in  Polonius  who  carefully 
advises  Laertes  against  quarrels :  "  Beware  of  entrance 
to  a  quarrel,"  and  who  will  put  up  with  almost  every- 
thing from  Hamlet  in  order  to  avoid  an  overt  dispute, 
even,  as  Cecil  did  from  Essex,  with  the  most  contemptuous 
mocking. 

Cecil  employed  spying  and  eavesdropping  as  political 
weapons  to  a  quite  amazing  extent : 

"  Spies  and  secret  agents  paid  by  him  were  in  every  court 
and  in  every  camp  .  .  .  the  English  Catholic  nobles  were 
closely  watched  and  for  a  month  every  line  the  Spanish 
ambassador  wrote  was  conveyed  to  Cecil  by  Borghese.  Once, 
early  in  May,  the  bishop's  courier  with  important  letters  for 
the  Duchess  of  Parma,  was  stopped  two  miles  beyond  Graves- 
end  by  pretended  highwaymen  who  were  really  gentlemen 
(the  brothers  Cobham)  in  Cecil's  pay,  and  the  man  was 
detained  while  the  letters  were  sent  to  the  Secretary  to  be 
deciphered  and  copied."  ' 

The  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  states  the  matter 
thus : 

"  His  life  began  to  be  threatened  ;  assassins  were  bribed 
to  slay  him  and  the  queen  :  the  murder  of  both  or  either,  it 
was  taught,  would  be  something  more  glorious  than  mere 
justifiable  homicide.  Against  the  new  doctrine  and  its 
desperate  disciples  it  seemed  to  Cecil  that  extraordinary 
precautions  were  needed,  and  for  the  next  twenty  years  he 
kept  a  small  army  of  spies  and  informers  in  his  pay  who  were 
his  detective  poUce,  and  he  used  it  without  scruple  to  get 

*  Martin  Hume. 


122     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

information  when  it  was  needed,  to  keep  watch  upon  the 
sayings  and  doings  of  suspected  characters  at  home  and 
abroad.  They  were  a  vile  band,  and  the  employment  of 
such  instruments  could  not  but  bring  some  measure  of  dis- 
honour upon  their  employer." 

Intercepted  letters  and  the  employment  of  spies  were, 
then,  a  quite  conspicuous  and  notorious  part  of  Cecil's 
statecraft,  and  they  are  certainly  made  especially 
characteristic  of  Shakespeare's  Polonius.  Polonius 
intercepts  the  letters  from  Hamlet  to  his  daughter ; 
he  appropriates  Hamlet's  most  intimate  correspondence, 
carries  it  to  the  king,  and  discusses  it  without  a  moment's 
shame  or  hesitation :  he  and  the  king  play  the  eaves- 
dropper during  Hamlet's  interview  with  Ophelia :  he 
himself  spies  upon  Hamlet's  interview  with  his  mother. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  these  things  are  made 
both  futile  and  hateful  in  Polonius,  and  they  were  precisely 
the  things  that  were  detested  in  Cecil. 

It  is  also  worthy  of  note  that  Burleigh  took  the  utmost 
care  not  to  conduct  marriage  projects  for  his  daughter 
in  a  way  that  might  suggest  he  was  using  her  to  further 
his  o^vn  interests. 

"  How  careful  he  was  to  avoid  all  cause  for  doubt  is  seen 
by  his  answer  to  Lord  Shrewsbury's  offer  of  his  son  as  a 
husband  for  one  of  Burleigh's  daughters.  .  .  .  The  match 
proposed  was  a  good  one  and  the  Lord  Treasurer — a  new 
noble — was  flattered  and  pleased  by  the  offer."  ^ 

He  refused  it,  however,  because  Shrewsbury  was  in 
charge  of  the  Queen  of  Scots,  and  he  feared  the  suspicion 
of  intrigues, 

"  A  similar  but  more  flattering  offer  was  made  by  the  Earl 

^l^fartin  Home. 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh         123 

of  Essex  in  1573  on  behalf  of  his  son  ;    but  this  also  was 
declined." 

Cecil,  in  fact,  was  always  particularly  careful  not  to 
let  Elizabeth  or  anyone  else  think  that  ambition  for 
his  daughter  could  tempt  him  into  unwise  political 
plans. 

In  exactly  the  same  way  we  find  Polonius  guarding 
himself  against  any  suspicion  that  he  may  have  en- 
couraged Hamlet's  advances  to  Ophelia.  "  The 
king  asks  ^ :  "  How  hath  she  received  his  love  ?  "  and 
Polonius  enquires,  "  What  do  you  think  of  me  ?  " 
The  king  rephes  :  "  As  of  a  man  faithful  and  honour- 
able "  ;  Polonius  proceeds  to  explain  that,  such  being 
the  case,  he  could  not  possibly  have  encouraged  the 
love  between  Hamlet  and  his  daughter ;  but  he  had 
informed  the  latter  that  she  must  "  lock  herself "  from 
the  prince. 

There  is  a  further  curious  parallel  in  the  fact  that 
when  Cecil's  daughter — Elizabeth — married  De  Vere, 
Earl  of  Oxford — the  husband  turned  sulky,  separated 
himself  from  his  wife,  and  declared  that  it  was  Cecil's 
fault  for  influencing  his  wife  against  him. 

"  A  few  days  later  Burghley  had  reason  to  be  still  more 
angry  with  Oxford  himself,  though  with  his  reverence  for 
rank  he  appears  to  have  treated  him  with  inexhaustible 
patience  and  forbearance.  .  .  .  Oxford  declined  to  meet  his 
wife  or  to  hold  any  communication  with  her  ;  Burghley 
reasoned,  remonstrated,  and  besought  in  vain.  Oxford  was 
sulky  and  intractable.  His  wife,  he  said,  had  been  influenced 
by  her  parents  against  him  and  he  would  have  nothing  more 
to  do  with  her." 

'  Act  II.,  ii. 


124     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

So,  also,  in  the  drama  we  find  Polonius  interfering 
between  his  daughter  and  her  lover,  we  find  his  machina- 
tions so  successful  that  Hamlet  turns  sulky,  and  is 
alienated  from  Ophelia  for  good. 

Other  significant  details  may  be  observed. 

Cecil  was  a  new  man,  and  nothing  annoyed  him  more 
than  to  have  the  fact  called  to  his  attention.  "  The 
most  artful  of  his  enemies,  Father  Persons,  well  knew  the 
weak  point  in  his  armour,  and  wounded  him  to  the  quick 
in  his  books,  in  which  he  pretended  to  show  that  the 
Lord  Treasurer  was  of  base  origin,  his  father  a  tavern- 
keeper,  and  he  himself  a  bell-ringer.  We  have  seen  in 
a  former  case  that  attacks  upon  his  ancestry  almost 
alone  aroused  Lord  Burleigh's  anger."  ^ 

Hamlet,  w-e  may  remember,  taunts  Polonius  with 
following  a  base  trade,  with  being  a  fishmonger ;  Polonius 
repudiates  the  idea  with  scorn,  to  which  Hamlet  retorts  : 
"  Then,  I  would  you  were  so  honest  a  man."  ^ 

There  is  probably  more  than  one  meaning  here,  but 
the  most  obvious  is  a  taunt  at  a  low  origin. 

Again  Ophelia  sings  songs  of  lanientalion  one  of  which 
seems  obviously  intended  for  her  father.  ' '  He  is  dead 
and  gone  "  ;  she  confuses  him  with  a  religious  man :  ''  his 
cockle  hat  and  staff  And  his  sandal  shoon."  ^ 

Towards  the  end  of  Burleigh's  life  there  was,  apparently, 
a  standing  jest  about  him  in  the  character  of  a  religious 
man,  a  hermit. 

Thus,  Martin  Hume  refers  to  the  queen's  visit  to 
Theobalds,  and  to  a  letter  presented  by  a  man  dressed 
as  a  hermit ;  the  letter  reminded  her  that  the  last  time 

'  Martin  Hume.  ^     *  Act  II.,  ii  '  Act  IV.,  v. 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh         125 

she  came  "his  founder,  upon  a  strange  conceit,  to  feed 

his  own  humour,  had  placed  the  hermit  contrary  to  his 

profession  in  his  house,  whilst  he  (Burghley)  had  retired 

to  the  hermit's  poor  cell." 

Yet    more    curious    parallels    may    be    quoted.     In    a 

strange  letter  to  Essex,  Lord  Henry  Howard  exults  that 

"  the  dromedary  that  would  have  won  the  favour  of  the 

Queen  of  Sabez  is  almost  enraged  "  (meaning  Burleigh  by 

the  dromedar\),  and  asks  the  earl  whether  "he  cannot 

drag  out  the  old  leviathan  and  his  cub"  (meaning  the 

two  Cecils).     We  may  surely  compare  this  with  Hamlet's 

conversation  with  Polonius  : 

Ham.  Do  yon  see  yonder  cloud  that's  almost  in  shape  of  a 

camel  ? 
Pol.  By  the  mass,  and  'tis  like  a  camel,  indeed. 
Ham.  Methinks  it  is  like  a  weasel. 
Pol.   It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 
Ham.  Or  like  a  whale  ? 
Pol.  Very  like  a  whale.* 

When  we  remember  that  Shakespeare  would,  in  all 
human  probability,  have  had  access  to  the  Essex  corre- 
spondence shown  by  Essex  himself,  we  can  see  the  point 
still  more  strongl3'. 

It  is  hardty  necessary  to  show,  how,  in  the  corre- 
spondence of  the  time,  such  as  that  of  Standen  and 
Anthony  Bacon,  Burleigh  is  continually  alluded  to  with 
contempt.  Thus  Standen  writes  to  Anthony  Bacon, 
March  1595,  that  the  queen  paid  no  heed  to  Burleigh, 
when  he  protested  against  the  expedition  to  Cadiz : 
"  WTien  she  saw  it  booted  not  to  stay  him,  she  said  he 
\vas  a  '  f reward  old  fool.'  " 

1  Act  111.,  ii. 


126     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Anthony,  even  in  his  correspondence  with  Lady  Anne 
Bacon,  refers  to  Burleigh  continually  as  "  the  old  man," 

This  is  the  general  tone  of  Hamlet  to  Polonius. 
Burleigh  seems  to  have  done  his  utmost  to  conciliate 
Essex,  and  Anthony  Bacon  speaks  of  Burleigh's  humili- 
ation with  pleasure :  "  Our  Earl  hath  made  the  old 
Fox  to  crouch  and  whine."  The  humiliation  of  Burleigh 
by  his  scornful  rival  was,  indeed,  one  of  the  standing 
jests  of  the  court. 

I  may  also  quote  in  this  connection  Jonson's  estimate 
of  the  character  of  Polonius  : 

"  Polonius  is  a  man  bred  in  courts,  exercised  in  business, 
stored  with  observation,  confident  in  his  knowledge,  proud 
of  his  eloquence  and  declining  into  dotage,  .  .  .  This  idea 
of  dotage  encroaching  upon  wisdom  will  solve  all  the  pheno- 
mena of  the  character  of  Polonius." 

Now,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  possible  that  an  Eliza- 
bethan audience  could  overlook  the  resemblances  between 
Polonius  and  Burleigh,  they  are  at  once  so  wide  and  all- 
embracing  and  so  minute  and  detailed. 
[  We  have  the  fact  that  each  is  a  councillor,  almost 
supreme  in  his  office,  isolated  in  his  generation  with  no 
person  of  equal  authority  near  him.  Each  has  a  passion 
for  detail,  for  personal  management,  for  analysing 
matters  with  the  minutest  care.  Each  has  the  habit  of 
giving  worldly-wise  maxims  to  a  son,  maxims  which  are 
full  of  prudence  but  totally  lacking  in  generosity  and 
unselfishness,  maxims  which  are  sometimes  almost  word 
for  word  the  same,  j  Each  has  a  spendthrift  son,  who  goes 
to  Paris  and  who  receives  many  instructions  from  his 


Polonius,  Rizzio  and  Burleigh         127 

father,  a  licentious  son  who  is  watched  by  his  father's 
orders,  and  reports  upon  whom  are  brought  home  by  the 
father's  commands.  (Each  takes  the  same  care  not  to 
aim  too  high  in  a  daughter's  marriage  lest  he  should 
compromise  his  own  position.  Each  causes  a  separation 
between  his  daughter  and  the  man  she  loves  because 
the  daughter  is  believed  to  be  completely  the  father's 
agent  and  his  decoy.  Each  has  the  same  methods  of 
statecraft,  by  intercepting  letters  of  the  most  private 
nature,  by  shameless,  undignified  incessant  spying, 
spying  practised  upon  all  possible  occasions.  1  Each  has 
the  same  reverence  for  rank,  the  same  interest  in  the 
university  and  university  life,  the  same  assumption  of 
classical  scholarship,  the  same  dislike  of  quarrels,  the 
same  willingness  to  bear  insults  rather  than  resent  them. 

Each  is  insulted  by  being  compared  to  various  animals, 
a  camel,  a  weasel,  and  a  whale,  on  one  side,  a  dromedary, 
a  fox  and  a  whale  on  the  other.  Each  is  made  a  public 
butt  by  a  brilliant  5'oung  man,  by  Hamlet  in  the  one  case, 
and  by  the  Earl  of  Essex  in  the  other. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Shakespeare  could  have  got 
more  resemblances  into  the  brief  space  at  his  disposal. 
Add  to  this  the  fact  that  the  Cecils  were  the  bitter 
enemies  of  Essex  and  his  party,  that  it  was  the  son  of 
Burleigh  who  has  supposed  to  have  triumphed  over 
and  destroyed  the  unhappy  Essex,  and  we  have  a  motive 
for  Shakespeare's  satire  of  the  most  powerful  and  cogent 
kind. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  particularly  difficult  to  sec 
what  Shakespeare's  method  is.  Burleigh  was  just  pre- 
cisely one  of   tlie  characters  who  would  interest  his — 


128     ITarnlet  and  the  ScoLtish  Succession 

Shakespeare's— audience  most,  and  who  really  did 
present  a  magnificent  subject  lor  ^tudv.  On  the  other 
hand,  from  the  dramatic  point  of  view,  Burleigh  had  one 
immense  disadvantage  :  that  nothing  in  particular  had 
ever  happened  to  him,  and  that  he  died  quite  respectably 
and  tranquilly  in  his  bed.  The  murder  of  Rizzio  was, 
however,  one  of  the  most  dramatic  events  in  recorded 
history  ;  Shakespeare,  therefore,  combines  the  character 
of  Burleigh  with  the  end  of  Rizzio.  The  dramatic  motive 
for  doing  so  is  just  as  clear  and  definite  as  the  dramatic 
motive  for  combining  the  parts  of  the  two  Bothwells 
in  one,  and  calling  them  both  Claudius. 

We  have,  of  course,  a  real  parallel  between  Rizzio  and 
Cecil ;  both  were  men  put  in  a  position  of  supreme  trust 
and  wielding  immense  power  by  secret  and  underhand 
methods  ;  both  were  regarded  as  unprincipled  and  in- 
triguers, and  both  were  objects  of  detestation  and  dislike. 

Moreover,  the  uniting  in  one  of  the  two  characters 
stitches,  as  it  were,  the  two  parts  of  the  drama  together ; 
it  brings  the  James  I.  part  into  close  relation  with  the 
Essex  part. 


CHAPTER  VI 

OPHELIA 

I  WILL  turn  now  to  another  portion  of  the  play  :  that 
connected  with  Ophelia.  Let  us  note  at  the  outset 
three  things  : 

(i)  That  there  is  an  obvious  dramatic  motive  for 
adding  this  love  story  to  the  play. 

(2)  That  it  can  hardly  have  any  relation  to  the  history 
of  James  I. 

(3)  That  it  cannot  fairly  be  said  to  be  suggested  by 
the  saga  source.     I  will  deal  with  these  points  in  order. 

(i)  The  dramatic  motive  for  the  addition  of  Ophelia's 
story  is  plain  enough  ;  it  adds  greatly  to  the  interest 
of  Hamlet  as  a  play,  and  to  the  interest  of  the  prince 
himself  as  a  character.  Just  as  the  addition  of  the 
story  of  Marguerite  to  that  of  Faust  increases  the  value 
of  the  drama  by  adding  pathos  and  tenderness  to  some- 
thing that  would  otherwise  be  too  purely  intellectual, 
so  does  the  addition  of  Ophelia's  story  increase  by  its 
pathos  the  value  of  Hamlet. 

(2)  Apparently,  also,  this  portion  of  the  play  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  James  I,  James  married, 
as  most  princes  marry,  in  the  same  conventional  and 
well-accepted  way,  and  the  only  romantic  circumstance 
connected  with  his  marriage  was  the  voyage  to  bring  his 
bride  home  to  Scotland,  which  has  already  been  discussed. 

T  129 


130     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

(3)  Neither  does  the  saga  give  much  s\iggestion.  Saxo 
recounts  how  Amleth's  enemies  attempt  to  employ  a 
certain  woman  as  a  decoy  ;  they  plan  that  she  shall  entice 
the  prince,  who  is  pretending  madness,  to  make  love  to 
her,  and  so  obtain  possession  of  his  secrets  ;  Amleth, 
however,  is  forewarned  by  a  friend  who  fastens  a  piece 
of  straw  to  a  horse-fly,  and  sends  it  past  the  place  where 
Amleth  lurks.  Amleth  detects  the  meaning  of  this 
somewhat  fantastic  device ;  he  drags  the  woman  off 
into  a  remote  covert  where  he  violates  her,  but  without 
revealing  anything  or  betraying  himself  in  any  way  at 
all.  She  is  so  deeply  ashamed  that  she  herself  denies 
any  connection  between  them,  and  the  trap  thus  proves 
of  no  avail. 

The  Hystorie  oj  Hamblet  smooths  out  some  of  the 
worst  absurdities  from  this  narrative  and  says  that  the 
lady  had  "  from  her  infancy  loved  and  favoured  him," 
but  here  also  she  is  a  mere  decoy  to  vice,  outwitted  and 
rejected. 

It  is  obvious  that  we  are  miles  away  from  the 
story  of  Ophelia  and  Hamlet  with  all  its  romance  and 
subtlety.  What  seems  plausible  is  that  the  woman  in 
the  saga  was  the  mere  starting-point,  and  that  all  the 
rest  is  the  poet's  own  creation.  But  here,  again,  let 
us  refer  to  our  standard  criterion — the  Elizabethan 
audience.  Let  us  remember  that  the  point  from  which 
we  started  was  the  Essex  conspiracy  and  the  Essex  trial 
with  which  the  subject  of  the  Scottish  succession  was 
inseparably  bound  up. 

Would  the  audience  think  the  story  of  Oplniia  had 
anything  to  do  with  the  Essex  trial  ? 


Ophelia  13 1 

I  can  only  say  that  I  feel  pretty  sure  they  would,  for 
it  shows  features  which  have  the  most  marked  resemblances 
to  the  stories  of  the  two  heroines  connected  with  that 
trial :  Elizabeth  Vernon,  the  wife  of  Southampton,  and 
Lady  Essex. 

If  Shakespeare  started  from  this  point  he  would  most 
certainly  find  there  the  suggestion  for  his  love-story. 

We  may  quote  a  letter  from  Rowland  White  : 

"  My  lord  of  Southampton  doth  with  too  much  familiarity 
court  the  fair  Mistress  Vernon,  while  his  friends,  observing 
the  Queen's  humours  towards  my  Lord  of  Essex,  do  what 
they  can  to  bring  her  to  favour  him,  but  in  vain." 

Southampton's  love  for  Elizabeth  Vernon  cost  him  the 
favour  of  the  queen ;  nothing  would  induce  Elizabeth 
to  consent  to  his  marriage.  From  this  time  (1595) 
onwards  Southampton's  high  spirit  was  incessantly 
galled  ;  he  was  kept  apart  from  the  woman  he  loved, 
ordered  to  absent  himself  from  Court,  and  continually 
checked  in  his  pubhc  career. 

We  may  quote  the  following  extracts  from  Rowland 
White's  letters  January  i4th,  1598  : 

"  I  hear  my  Lord  of  Southampton  goes  with  Mr  Secretary 
to  France,  and  so  onward  on  his  travels,  which  course  of  his 
doth  extremely  grieve  his  mistress,  that  passes  her  time  in 
weeping  and  lamenting." 

And  again  on  February  ist : 

"  My  Lord  of  Soutliampton  is  much  troubled  by  her  Majesty's 
strangest  usage  of  him.  Somebody  hath  played  unfriendly 
parts  with  him.     Mr  Secretary  hath  procured  him  license  to 


132     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

travel.  His  fair  mistress  doth  wash  her  fairest  face  with 
many  tears.  I  pray  God  his  going  away  bring  her  to  no  such 
infirmity  which  is  as  it  were  hereditary  to  her  name."  February 
1 2th,  "  My  Lord  of  Southamption  is  gone  and  hath  left  behind 
him  a  fair  gentlewoman  that  hath  almost  wept  out  her  fairest 
eyes." 

Shortly  after  Elizabeth  Vernon  was  ordered  away 
from  Court,  Chamberlain  writes : 

"  Mrs  Vernon  is  from  the  Court  and  lies  at  Essex  House. 
Some  say  she  hath  taken  a  venue  under  her  girdle  and  swells 
upon  it ;  3'et  she  complains  not  of  foul  play  but  says  My  Lord 
of  Southampton  will  justify  it,  and  it  is  bruited  underhand 
that  he  was  lately  here  four  days  in  great  secret  of  purpose 
to  marry  her  and  effected  it  accordingly." 

The  secret  marriage  seems  to  have  taken  place  in  1598, 
and  the  queen,  possibly  getting  to  hear  of  it,  was  totally 
alienated  from  Southampton. 

In  1599,  Essex  went  to  Ireland ;  that  Shakespeare 
watched  this  venture  with  interest  and  hoped  for 
a  successful  issue  is  proved  by  the  open  and  daring 
reference  to  it  in  Henry  V.  Southampton  accompanied 
Essex,  and  was  made  his  General  of  Horse,  but  the  queen 
commanded  Essex  to  revoke  the  appointment.  South- 
ampton returned  to  London,  and  continued  to  give  great 
offence  by  absenting  himself  from  Court  and  frequenting 
plays  instead.  White  writes  on  October  19th :  "  My 
Lord  Southampton  and  Lord  Rutland  come  not  to  Court, 
they  pass  away  the  time  in  London  merely  in  going  to 
plays  every  day." 

The  offence  in  this  lay,  of  course,  in  the  connection 
the  stage  was  invariably  supposed  to  have  with  politics. 

Both    Essex    and    Southampton    repeatedly    offended 


Ophelia  133 

the  queen  by  the  connection  they  had  with  plays  and 
players,  just  as  Hamlet  offended  the  king  by  his  con- 
nection with  plays  and  players  ;  if  Elizabethan  dramas 
in  general,  and  Shakespeare's  in  particular,  were  always 
dealing  w]th  purely  imaginary  events  and  characters 
where  would  be  the  cause  for  the  annoyance  ? 

The  candid  truth  is,  all  our  evidence  goes  to  show  that 
the  dramatists  in  general,  and  Shakespeare  qtute  as  much 
as  the  others,  offended  as  Hamlet  did  in  the  Gonzago 
play. 

Southampton,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out,  in 
disgrace  at  the  Court,  joined  in  the  rash  and  foolish  Essex 
conspiracy.  Like  Essex,  he  was  condemned  to  death, 
but  the  sentence  was  com-muted  to  perpetual  imprison- 
ment ;  this  was  the  situation  in  which  he  lay  at  the  time 
Hamlet  was  written,  and  Southampton's  only  hope  lay 
in  the  accession  of  James  I. ;  as  the  Essex  conspiracy 
was  supposed  to  be  in  his  favour,  James  might  naturally 
be  expected  to  set- Southampton  free  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  was  one  of  the  first  things  he  did  on  his  progress 
in  April  1603.     Chamberlain  says  : 

"  the   loth  of  this  month  the   Earl  of  Southampton   was 
dehvered  out  of  the  Tower,  and  the  King  looked  upon  him 
with  a  smihng  countenance.  .  .  .     These  bountiful  beginnings 
raise  all  men's  spirits  and  put  them  in  great  hopes." 

Now,  we  can  surely  see  a  certain  resemblance  between 
these  events  and  the  love-story  of  Hamlet  and  Opheha. 
There  is,  to  begin  with,  the  wooing  with  too  much 
Jamiliarity. 

Polonius  and  Laertes  both  complain  to  Ophelia  that 


134     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

she  is  laying  her  honour  too  much  open  to  suspicion. 

Laertes  says : 

"  weigh  what  loss  your  honour  may  sustain 
If  with  too  credent  ear  you  Ust  his  songs. 
Or  lose  your  heart,  or  your  chaste  treasure  open 
To  his  unmaster'd  importunity."  ^ 

Polonius  adds : 

'Tis  told  me,  he  hath  verjr  oft  of  late 

Given  private  time  to  you  ;   and  you  j'^ourself 

Have  of  your  audience  been  most  free  and  bounteous  .  .  . 

You  do  not  understand  yourself  so  clearly 

As  it  behoves  my  daughter  and  your  honour." 

Elizabeth    Vernon,    when    her   honour    was   called   in 

question,    justified   herself   and   her   lover   by   declaring 

that  he  had  pledged  her  his  word  ;    so  Ophelia  justifies 

herself  and  Hamlet : 

"  He  hath  importuned  me  with  love 
In  honourable  fashion  .  .  . 

And  hath  given  countenance  to  his  speech,  my  lord, 
With  almost  all  the  holy  vows  of  heaven." 

Elizabeth  Vernon  is  separated  from  her  lover,  and  so 

is  Ophelia : 

..."  This  is  for  all: 
I  would  not,  in  plain  terms,  from  this  time  forth 
Have  you  so  slander  any  moment  leisure 
As  to  give  words  or  talk  with  the  Lord  Hamlet." 

Elizabeth  Vernon's  love  affair  was  made  a  court  affair 
and  a  matter  of  state  interference;  it  was  discussed  by 
everyone  in  a  way  calculated  to  cause  agony  to  a  sensitive 
soul :  so  is  Ophelia's. 

Since  marriage  was  made  impossible  by  this  cruel 
interference    there    was    a    very    strong    suspicion    that 

1  A- 1 1.,  iii. 


Ophelia  135 

Elizabeth  Vernon  had  been  seduced ;  her  lover  went 
away,  and  in  his  absence  she  was  in  the  deepest  distress 
and  in  danger  of  insanity.  All  these  things  unite  to 
make  pathetic  the  story  of  Ophelia:  she  is  under  the 
shadow  of  disgrace  ;  Hamlet's  language  to  her  in  the 
play  scene  is  of  the  coarsest  and  most  imprudent  kind, 
and  such  as  would  destroy  her  reputation  in  the  ears  of 
anyone  overhearing  it ;  the  songs  she  herself  sings  in  her 
madness  suggest  the  same  thing.  Does  it  not  look  as 
if  Shakespeare  were  simply  carrying  a  step  farther,  and 
making  a  degree  more  pathetic,  the  events  already 
suggested  to  him  by  his  friend's  story?  At  any  rate, 
the  play  is  here,  also,  far  and  away  closer  to  contemporary 
events  that  it  is  to  its  so-called  sources. 

Southampton,  certainly  the  poet's  generous  patron, 
quite  possibly  his  best-beloved  friend,  was  even  then  in 
the  Tower,  his  neck  in  jeopardy  on  account  of  the  peril 
brought  about  by  this  very  love-story.  He  and  his 
mistress  were  regarded  as  innocent  unhappy  beings, 
exasperated  into  disgrace  by  the  needless  persecution 
of  a  true  love. 

Could  anything  be  more  plausible  than  that  Shake- 
speare would  himself  be  deeply  and  profoundly  moved 
by  their  fate,  and  would  desire  to  awaken  sympathy 
with  them  if  he  could  ?  And,  if  to  show  his  S5ntnpathy 
also  perfects  his  wonderful  drama,  why  not  ? 

Moreover,  the  unity  which  he  must  consider  first  and 
foremost,  is  already  a  unity  in  the  minds  of  his  audience, 
for  all  these  things  were  bound  up  in  the  most  intimate 
and  \dtal  way  with  the  questions  of  the  Essex  conspiracy 
and  the  Scottish  Succession. 


/ 


136     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

With  regard  to  the  relations  between  Hamlet  and 
Ophelia  there  can  be  little  doubt,  I  think,  that 
Shakespeare  means  them  to  be  substantially  innocent 
since  they  are  depicted  with  so  much  sympathy ; 
but  whether  they  were  meant  to  be  innocent  in  the 
literal  sense  of  the  word  is  quite  another  question. 
We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  by  Victorian 
prudery. 

/  The  suspicions  of  Laertes  and  Polonius  might  be  ex- 
plained to  be  due  to  their  own  foulness  of  mind  ;  but 
/  Hamlet  suggests  the  same  thing  by  his  language  in  the 
play  scene,  and  so  does  OpheHa  in  her  songs — all  these 
things  taken  together  imply  a  conclusion  other  than  that 
of  innocence. 

May  it  not  be  an  essential  part  of  Hamlet's  tragedy 
that  he  and  the  woman  he  loves  have  genuinely  yielded 
to  temptation  ? 

In  this  connection  I  may  quote  Tieck  : 

"  How  much  of  fine  observation  is  there  in  what  is  said  of 
Ophelia  in  Goethe's  '  Wilhelm  Meister  '  :  But,  if  I  do  not 
entirely  misundci stand  Shakespeare,  the  poet  has  meant  to 
intimate  throughout  tlie  piece  that  the  poor  girl,  in  the 
ardour  of  her  passion  for  the  fair  prince,  has  yielded  all  to 
him.  The  hints  and  waiinngs  of  Laertes  come  too  late.  It 
is  tender  and  vvortliy  of  the  great  poet  to  leave  the  relation 
of  Hamlet  and  Ophelia,  like  much  else  in  the  piece,  a  riddle  ; 
but  it  is  from  this  point  of  view  alone  that  Hamlet's  behaviour, 
his  bitterness  and  Ophelia's  suffering  and  madness,  fmd 
connection  and  consistency." 

"  At  the  acting  of  tho  play  before  the  court,  OpheHa  has 
to  endme  all  sorts  of  coarseness  from  Hamlet  before  all  the 
(ourtiors ;  he  treats  hv.v  williout  that  inspect  which  she 
appears  to  him  to  have  long  before  forfeited." 


Ophelia  137 

I  cannot  help  adding  that  our  modern  habit  of  senti- 
mental interpretation  interferes  with  Shakespeare's 
tragedy  ;  if  the  worst  happened  to  Ophelia  it  does  not 
make  her  tragedy  less,  but  only  more  poignant ;  it  makes 
her  as  overwhelmingly  pathetic  as  Marguerite  in  Faust. 

In  this  connection  I  may  point  out  that  many  critics 
have  been  puzzled  by  the  fact  that  Hamlet's  love  for 
Ophelia  seems  to  be  obvious  only  in  certain  scenes  of  the 
play  and  not  in  others. 

Furnivall  goes  so  far  as  to  think  that  the  Hamlet  who 
was  at  first  depicted  as  the  lover  of  Opheha  was  very 
different  and  not  as  mature  as  the  later  Hamlet : 

"  I  look  on  it  as  certain  that  when  Shakespeare  began  the 
play  he  conceived  Hamlet  as  quite  a  young  man.  But,  as  the 
play  grew,  as  greater  weight  of  reflection,  of  insight  into 
character,  of  knowledge  of  life,  etc.,  was  wanted,  Shakespeare 
necessarily  and  naturally  made  Hamlet  a  formed  man  ;  and 
by  the  time  that  he  got  to  the  grave-digger's  scene,  told  us 
the  prince  was  thirty — the  right  age  for  him,  but  not  his  age 
when  Laertes  and  Polonius  warned  Ophelia  against  his  blood 
that  burned  in  youthful  fancy  for  her — "  a  toy  in  the  blood." 
The  two  parts  of  the  play  are  inconsistent  on  this  nmin  point 
in  Hamlet's  state." 

Now,  this  is  exactly  my  own  point  of  view,  only  I 
think  the  discrepancy  arises  from  the  fact  that  Shake- 
speare is  drawing  his  Hamlet  from  more  than  one  original, 
that  the  character  is,  in  fact,  a  composite,  and  that  all 
the  parts  of  the  composite  are  not  consistent. 

Another  point  to  be  noted,  is  that  Hamlet  never  refers 
to  Ophelia  in  his  soliloquies ;  in  these  soliloquies  he 
shows  himself  a  good  deal  of  a  misogynist  and  his  misogyny 
appears  to  be  largely  due  to  his  mother's  misconduct, 


138     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

but  he  never  refers  either  to  Ophelia's  love  for  him,  or 
to  his  for  her ;  in  fact,  he  forgets  all  about  her  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  play.  This  is  very  curious  if  he 
really  cared  for  her  so  deeply. 

Another  detail  to  observe  lies  in  one  of  the  songs  sung 
by  Ophelia ;  it  is  a  lascivious  song,  and  concerns  the 
meeting  of  two  lovers  as  Valentines  and  their  licentious 
union  ;  Nash  wrote  for  Southampton  a  lascivious  poem 
entitled  "  The  Choosing  of  Valentines  "  which  deals  with 
almost  identical  circumstances ;  it  was  dedicated  to  the 
earl  in  two  sonnets,  one  prefixed  and  the  other  suffixed. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HAMLET  AND  ESSEX 

I  WILL  letiiin  now  to  the  point  from  which  I  started — 
the  Essex  trial — for  it  seems  to  me  obvious  that  the 
character  of  Hamlet  and  the  experiences  of  Hamlet 
include,  also,  a  good  deal  suggested  by  Essex. 

Essex,  we  may  remember,  had  a  side  of  his  character 
which  was  deeply  studious  and  by  nature  he  was  a 
student  and  a  soldier  far  more  than  a  courtier.  Francis 
Bacon  advised  him  to  appear  "  bookish  and  contem- 
plative." ^  In  his  Apology  addressed  to  Anthony  Bacon, 
Essex  says : 

"  For  my  infection  in  nature,  it  was  indifierent  to  books 
and  arms  and  was  more  inflamed  with  the  love  of  know- 
ledge than  with  the  love  of  fame.  .  .  .  Witness  yonr  rarely 
qualified  brother  .  .  .  and  my  bookishness  from  my  very 
childhood." 

Wotton,  in  his  Reliquice,  gives  testimony  to  the  same 
effect : 

"  It  is  certain  that  he  (Leicester)  drew  him  (Essex)  first 
into  the  fatal  circle  from  a  kind  of  resolved  privateness 
at  his  house  at  Lampsie  in  South  Wales  when,  after  the 
academical  Ufe,  he  had  taken  such  a  taste  for  the  rural  as  I 
have  heard  him  say  ...  he  could  have  well  bent  his  mind 
to  a  retired  course." 

1  Abbot,  Bacon  and  Essex. 

139 


140     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Now,  here  we  surely  see  the  parallel  with  Hamlet  in 
the  studious  nature  which  loves  retirement,  and  washes 
to  avoid  the  court  and  to  live  in  seclusion  after  the 
university  course. 

"  Essex,"  says  Mr  Abbott,  "sorely  needed  guidance,  and, 
unlike  many  of  the  guideless,  he  knew  that  he  needed  it. 
Like  Hamlet  he  was  and  knew  that  he  was  too  liable  to  be 
'  passion's  slave  '  and  he  longed  for  some  calm,  steadfast 
and  philosophic  Horatio.  .  .  .  Physically  and  mentally  Essex 
was  as  unstable  as  Hamlet  ...  at  one  time  outshining 
all  his  peers  in  the  gIor>'  of  the  tilt-yard,  at  the  next,  sulking 
in  solitude  at  Wanstead  ;  now  the  Queen's  chief  councillor 
and  sole  depositary  of  all  state  secrets,  now  again  forswearing 
all  work,  neglecting  all  his  own  interests  and  even  those  of 
his  friends  ;  at  one  moment  exulting  ...  at  another  ex- 
claiming '  Vanitas  vanitatum  '  and  despairing  even  of  honour 
and  safety.  .  .  .  His  instabihty  more  often  injured  himself 
than  his  friends." 

Just  as  Essex  had  come  reluctantly  to  Court  from 
his  studies,  so  he  often  desired  to  retire  from  it,  and  at 
times  did  so.  In  a  letter  to  Lady  Anne  Bacon,  the 
Earl  complains :  "  I  live  in  a  place  where  I  am  hourly 
compassed  against  and  practised  upon." 

Anthony  Bacon  accuses  Cecil  of  tampering  with  his 
correspondence,  and  Essex  feels  ill  at  ease  amid  all  this 
intrigue,  and  once  more  resorts  to  his  old  expedient  of 
absenting  himself  from  Court. 

"  Essex,"  says  Mr  Abbott,  "  was  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life,  continually  suffering  from  melancholy." 

Essex,  also,  seemed  at  times  on  the  verge  of  insanity. 
"  The  Earl  is  crazed,"  writes  Chamberlain,  "  but  whether 
more  in  mind  or  body,  is  doubtful," 


Hamlet  and  Essex  141 

At  his  trial  Essex  was  accused  by  Robert  Cecil  of 
ambition,  and  of  aspiring  to  the  Crown  : 

"  I  have  said  the  King  of  Scots  was  a  competitor  ;  and 
you  I  have  said  are  a  Competitor  ;  you  would  depose  the 
Queen,  you  would  be  King  of  England,  and  call  a  Parliament." 

Essex,  in  his  reply,  dwelt  on  his  lack  of  ambition  : 

"  I  have  laboured  and  by  my  prayers  to  God  earnestly 
desired  that  I  might  be  armed  with  patience  to  endure  all 
afflictions.  .  .  .  God  which  knowcth  the  secrets  of  all  hearts 
knows  that  I  never  sought  the  Crown  of  England,  nor  ever 
wished  to  be  a  higher  degree  than  that  of  subject." 

Now,  I  have  already  pointed  out,  that  in  the  original 
saga,  one  of  Hamlet's  chief  motives  was  his  desire  to  gain 
the  crown  for  himself ;  in  Shakespeare's  play  this  is 
entirety  omitted,  and  the  hero  is  characterised  by  a 
complete  lack  of  ambition,  very  curious  in  his  situation, 
but  explicable  enough  if  Shakespeare  is  taking  hints 
from  somebody  against  whom  ambition  had  been  made 
a  criminal  charge. 

Speaking  of  the  last  two  years  of  Essex's  life,  Mr  Abbott 
says : 

"  There  can  be  no  question  at  all  that,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
Essex  believed  that  his  enemies  around  the  Queen's  person 
were  plotting  the  betrayal  of  his  country  as  well  as  the  ruin 
of  himself  and  also  that  in  his  moods  of  depression  and  melan- 
choly, he  thought  his  life  to  be  in  immediate  danger." 

"  He  was  at  this  time  given  to  fits  of  gloom  and  despair." 

Harrington  says  of  him  in  such  a  mood  "  the  man's 
soul  tosseth  to  and  fro  like  a  troubled  sea." 

"  His  irresolution,"  says  Mr  Abbott  again,  "  bordered 
on  the  fit  fulness  of  insanity," 


142     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Now  here,  once  more,  we  surely  have  remarkable 
parallels  to  Hamlet :  in  the  last  part  of  the  play  we  have 
Hamlet's  feeling  that  his  enemies  are  plotting  his  death, 
and  will  certainly  achieve  it :  we  have  his  premonition, 
"  But  thou  wouldst  not  think,  how  ill  all's  here  about  my 
heart."  i 

The  mind  "  tossing  hke  a  troubled  sea,"  reminds  us 
of  Hamlet's  own  metaphor  "  to  take  arms  against  a  sea 
of  troubles.  And  by  opposing  end  them."  2 

Essex,  in  fact,  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  was,  as  Mr 
Abbott  so  justly  points  out,  startlingly  like  Hamlet : 
he  was  irresolute  almost  to  the  point  of  insanity,  he  was 
surrounded  by  cunning  enemies  who  plotted  against  his 
life,  he  had  a  premonition  of  disaster. 

Essex,  moreover,  suffered  from  a  misery  so  great  that 
he  often  longed  for  death.     Thus  he  said  at  his  trial : 

"  I  will  not  (I  protest  to  God)  speak  to  save  my  life  ;  for 
those  that  persecute  it  against  me,  shall  do  me  a  good  turn 
to  rid  me  of  much  misery  and  themselves  of  fear." 

We  may  compare  this  with  Hamlet.^ 

"  To  die  :    to  sleep  ; 
No  more  ;   and  by  a  sleep  to  say  we  end 
The  heart-ache,  and  the  tliousand  natural  shocks 
That  flesh  is  heir  to,  'tis  a  consummation 
Devoutly  to  be  wished." 

Essex,  on  being  condemned,  said,  as  he  had  often  done 
during  his  trial :  "  My  own  life  I  do  not  value,"  but  he 
besought  mercy  for  the  Karl  of  Southampton. 

'  A(t  v.,  ii.  s  A(t  III  ,  i.  ^  A.  t  IlL,  i. 


Hanilet  and  Essex  143 

We  may  compare  Hamlet,  "  I  do  not  set  my  life  at  a 
pin's  fee."  ^ 

Again  Essex  said,  "  I  protest  I  do  crave  her  Majesty's 
mercy  with  all  humility  ;  yet  I  had  rather  die  than  live 
in  misery." 

We  have  Hamlet's  ^  : 

"  For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time 
The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely,  .  .  . 
When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make 
With  a  bare  bodkin." 

Essex,  on  hearing  his  sentence,  said :  "  My  Lord,  I 
am  not  at  all  dismayed  to  receive  this  sentence,  for  death 
is  far  more  cheerful  to  me  than  life  ;  and  I  shall  die  as 
cheerful  a  death  as  ever  man  did." 

Essex,  in  fact,  showed  emphatically  during  the  last 
period  of  his  life,  the  world-weariness  and  the  life-weariness 
which  we  associate  so  markedly  with  Hamlet. 

John  Chamberlain,  writing  February  21st,  1600-1, 
says  : 

"  The  Earl  of  Essex  announced  that  he  was  driven  to  do 
what  he  did  for  safety  of  his  life.  .  .  .  This  was  the  summe 
of  his  answer,  but  delivered  with  such  bravery  and  so  many 
words  that  a  man  might  easily  perceive  that,  as  he  had  ever 
lived  popularly,  so  his  chief  care  was  to  have  a  good  opinion 
in  the  people's  minds  now  at  parting." 

We  may  compare  this  with  Hamlet's  intense  anxiety 
not  to  leave  after  him  "  a  wounded  name,"  and  his  in- 
junction to  Horatio  to  "  tell  my  story."  ^ 

»  Act  1.,  iv.  »  Act  III.,  1.  ^  Act  v.,  ii. 


144     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Malone    pointed    out    long    ago    that    Shakespeare    in 
writing  the  last  words  of  Horatio's  farewell : 

"  Now  cracks  a  noble  heart — Good  night,  sweet  prince, 
And  flights  of  Angels  sing  thee  to  thy  rest," 

had  in  his  mind  the  last  words  of  Essex  in  his  prayer 
on  the  scaffold :  ' '  And  when  my  soul  and  body  shall 
part,  send  thy  blessed  angels  to  be  near  unto  me  which  may 
convey  it  to  the  joys  oj  heaven."  We  may  also  note  that 
shortly  after  the  execution  there  was  a  ballad  published, 
entitled  Essex'  Last  Good-night.  It  is  a  rough  and  doggerel 
production  and  every  verse  ends  with  the  refrain  of 
"goodnight." 

"  He  never  yet  hurt  Mother's  son, 
His  quarrel  still  maintains  the  right, 
Which  the  tears  my  face  down  run 
When  I  think  on  his  last  Good-Night." 

' '  And  life  shall  make  amends  for  all 
For  Essex  bids  the  world  'Good-Night.'  " 

It  looks  as  if  Shakespeare  were  remembering  and 
reminding  his  audience  of  both. 

The  whole  part  of  Hamlet  which  is  concerned  with  the 
players  seems  to  me  to  have,  in  all  probability,  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  Essex. 

Both  Essex  and  Southampton  gave  repeated  offence 
to  the  queen  by  the  way  in  which  they  associated  them- 
selves with  actors  and  stage  plays. 

Mr  Ingram  says  : 

"  At  that  time  the  Stage,  to  a  great  extent,  possessed  the 
influence  which  in  a  later  age  passed  to  the  Press.  Having 
no  daily  journals  or  other  accessible  means  of  rapid  and  general 


Hamlet  and  Essex  145 

communication  on  topics  of  common  interest,  the  piiblic 
looked  to  and  found  what  it  wanted  in  the  Stage.  The  play 
supplied  references  to  the  political,  religious  and  social  events 
of  the  day.  Writers  and  players  found  their  profit  in  respond- 
ing to  the  popular  feeling  of  their  audience,  and  although 
many  times  fine  and  imprisonment  rewarded  their  attempt 
to  meddle  with  matters  of  state,  they  persisted  in  their 
efforts."  1 

Now  it  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  Shake- 
speare's company  had  the  closest  possible  connection 
with  the  Essex  trial  through  their  repeated  performance 
of  Richard  II.,  and  that  his  connection  with  the  play 
told  heavily  against  Essex  at  the  trial  itself  since  the 
deposition  scene  and  the  death  were  taken  as  being  an 
earnest  of  what  he  intended  to  do  with  the  queen. 

The  reader  will  also  remember  that  one  of  the  chief 
counts  in  the  indictment  against  Essex  was  his  patronage 
of  Haywarde's  book  on  Henry  IV.,  which  was  supposed 
to  contain  numerous  references  to  Elizabeth's  favouritism 
and  other  objectionable  features  of  her  reign. 

Now  surely  we  can  see  here  many  parallels  with 
Ilamlet.  We  see  Hamlet  heating  the  players  with  the 
utmost  courtesy,  on  terms  of  familiarity  with  them, 
interested  in  their  art,  giving  them  instructions  and 
consulting  with  them  as  to  the  plays  they  are  to  perform  ; 
his  connection  with  them  is  regarded  with  great  suspicion 
by  Pol'Miius  and  the  king  (exactly  as  the  queen  objected 
to  Essex  an  .  Scuthampton  having  a  comiection  with 
the  players),  and  with  justice,  for  Hamlet  docs  use  them 
for  political  purposes  exactly  as  Essex  had  used  them  for 
political  purposes. 

'  Christopher  M-niowc  and  his  Associates. 
K 


146     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Hamlet's  method  of  dealing  with  the  Gonzago  play  is 
exactly  the  method  which  Shakespeare  had  been  accused 
of  employing  both  iji  Henry  IV.  and  Richard  II.  It 
seems  to  me,  as  I  have  said  before,  exceedingly  prob- 
able that  it  was  the  method  he  used  in  dealing  with 
Hamlet.  He  selects  a  story  which  shows  a  considerable 
likeness  to  the  murder  of  his  father,  he  accentuates  that 
likeness,  and  makes  it  more  pointed,  and  then,  when  the 
king  is  naturally  full  of  indignation,  he  leaps  to  his  feet  and 
cries  that  "  the  story  is  extant,"  and  "in  choice  Italian." 
This  is  probably  the  exact  method  by  which  Shakespeare 
and  his  fellows  evaded  the  censor. 

Hamlet  himself  describes  the  players,  as  "  the  abstract 
and  brief  chronicles  of  the  time :  after  your  death  you 
were  better  have  a  bad  epitaph  than  their  ill  report  while 
you  live."  ^  Now,  in  what  sense  could  they  be  "the  abs- 
tract and  brief  chronicles  of  the  time,"  if  their  plays 
dealt  with  bronze-age  Britain,  with  ancient  Denmark 
and  remote  Illyria,  and  with  nothing  else. 

Moreover,  if  this  were  the  case,  why  should  the  Star 
Chamber  concern  itself  so  closely  with  both  dramatists 
and  actors.  The  truth  is  that  we  have  overwhelm- 
ing evidence  for  the  political  influence  of  the  stage, 
and  Shakespeare  and  Shakespeare's  company  were  as 
deeply  involved  as  anyone. 

In  the  case  of  Hamlet  his  meddling  with  the  Gonzago 
play  is  the  thing  that  excites  the  suspicion  of  the  king, 
which  never  afterwards  slumbered ;  he  places  his  neck 
in  jeopardy,  and  ultimately  brings  his  fate  upon  him 
through  this  play.     In  exactly  the  same  way  did  Essex 

1  Act  II.,  ii. 


Hamlet  and  Essex  147 

place  his  neck  in  jeopardy,  and  help  to  bring  suspicion 
upon  himself  (as  his  trial  shows)  by  his  connection  with 
Richard  II. 

All  this  part  of  Hamlet  is  quite  obviously  full  of  topical 
allusions,  for  Shakespeare  even  makes  a  reference  to  the 
boys,  the  "  little  eyases  "  who  supplanted  himself  and 
his  company  in  the  favour  of  the  court  when  they  were 
disgraced  on  account  of  this  very  affair. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Shakespeare  bi"ings  his 
own  company  in  here.  Hamlet  asks  :  "  What  players 
are  thev  ?  ' ' 

Ros.  Even  those  you  were  wont  to  take  delight  in,  the 
tragedians  of  the  city. 

Ham.  How  chances  it  they  travel  ?  their  residence,  both 
in  reputation  and  profit,  was  better  both  ways. 

Ros.  I  think  their  inhibition  comes  by  the  means  of  the 
late  innovation. 

Ham.  Do  they  hold  the  same  estimation  they  did  when  I 
was  in  the  citj'  ?   are  they  so  followed  ? 

Ros.  No,  indeed,  they  are  not. 

Ham.  How  comes  it  ?    do  they  grow  msty  ? 

Ros.  Nay,  their  cndea\our  keeps  in  the  wonted  pace  ; 
but  tlierc  is,  sir,  an  aery  oi  children,  little  eyases,  that  cry 
out  on  the  top  of  question  and  arc  most  tj-rannically  clapped 
ior't." 

Now,  this  is  one  of  the  passages  quite  definitely  accepted 
by  Mr  Boas  and  others  as  referring  to  Shakespeare's 
own  company,  and  one  of  the  passages  they  mainl}^  rely 
upon  in  estimating  the  date  of  the  play.  But,  if  Shake- 
speare inserts  his  company  like  this  into  the  very  middle 
of  Hamlet,  what  is  there  to  prevent  him  from  inserting 
also  the  method  of  himself  and  his  company  into  the 
midst  of  Hamlet,  and  explaining  it  in  the  Gonzago  play  ? 


148     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Can  we,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  imagine  a  better  method  of 
doing  it,  and  of  suggesting  that  Hamlei  is  full  of  historical 
parallels  even  though  the  story  is  extant  already  as  a 
play. 

Another  portion  of  Hamlet  which  seems  to  me  to 
contain,  in  all  probability,  reference  to  Essex,  is  the 
Laertes  story.  There  is  certainly  no  parallel  whatever 
to  this  in  the  original  saga,  but  there  is  in  the  last  years 
of  the  life  of  Essex. 

Laertes  is  cunningly  used  by  Claudius  as  a  rival  to 
Hamlet ;  he  tries  to  destroy  them  by  pitting  them  one 
against  the  other. 

It  was  in  exactly  the  same  way  that  Raleigh  had  been 
pitted  against  Essex.     Mr  Innes  ^  says  : 

"  Old  Lord  Burleigh  died,  and  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  story  of  the  Queen's  last  years  is  really  the  story  of  the 
crafty  intriguing  by  which  Robert  Cecil  first  urged  Essex  to 
the  ruin  on  which  he  was  ready  enough  to  rush,  and  then  laid 
his  mines  for  the  destruction  of  Raleigh  while  carefully 
avoiding  the  odium  in  both  cases." 

Essex  repeatedly  stated  at  the  time  of  his  abortive 
attempt,  and  also  during  his  trial,  that  he  believed 
his  life  in  danger,  and  that  Raleigh  and  others  had  been 
appointed  to  assassinate  him. 

Anthony  Weldon  states  that  the  destruction  of  Essex 
was  always  counted  against  Robert  Cecil : 

"  Sir  Robert  Cecil  was  a  very  wise  man,  but  much  hated 
in  England  by  reason  of  the  fresh  bleeding  of  that  unusually 
beloved  Earl  of  Essex." 


^  "  Walter  Raleigh  "  (in  Te7i  Ttidor  Statesmen). 


Hamlet  and  Essex  149 

At  the  Essex  trial  Masham  deposed,  February  loth, 
1601  : 

"  I  heard  that  Lord  Essex  should  liave  been  murdered, 
and  was  come  guarded  into  London  for  safety.  ...  I  met  a 
servant  of  Lady  Essex  who  told  me  that  Cobham  and  Raleigh 
would  have  murdered  my  lord  that  night.  .  .  .  My  lord 
came  forth  himself  and  declared  to  the  people  that  he  should 
have  been  murdered  and  came  to  them  for  safety'.  ..." 

So,  in  Hamlet,  Claudius  tries  to  employ  Laertes  to  get 
rid  of  Hamlet  in  order  to  avoid  the  odium  himself ;  the 
method  to  be  employed  is  that  of  an  "  envenomed  foil "  ; 
now,  venom  is,  of  course,  an  ever-recurring  metaphor 
for  slander,  and  stabbing  was  the  exact  method  of  death 
expected  b}^  Essex  himself. 

On  March  3rd,  1601,  the  deposition  of  Masham  was 
confirmed  by  that  of  Dr  Fletcher :  Mr  Temple  said  that 
the  Earl  was  waylaid  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  his 
company  of  ruffians,  and  that  if  he  went  {i.e.  to  court), 
he  should  certainly  be  martyred.  That  he  (Temple) 
acquainted  me  and  others  of  my  Lord's  friends  with  it, 
that  they  might  know  how  he  was  pursued  by  his  enemies, 
meaning  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  his  company. 

We  may  remember  in  this  connection  that  Raleigh 
was  present  at  the  death  of  Essex,  but,  for  fear  lest 
he  might  be  accused  of  triumphing  over  him  he  with- 
drew to  some  distance,  and  saw  it  from  the  armoury 
only. 

Raleigh  is  said  to  have  shed  tears  of  compassion. 
During  all  the  remainder  of  his  life  he  was  concerned 
to  excuse  himself  from  complicity. 

Even  at  his  death  (1618),  it  was  the  charge  against 


150     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

him  that  he  thought  most  grievous ;  on  the  scaffold 
Raleigh  entreated  everyone  to  believe 

"  that  he  had  not  been  instrumental  in  causing  the  death  of 
the  Earl  of  Essex  nor  had  he  rejoiced  thereat,  as  had  been 
imported  to  him.  On  tlie  contrary  he  had  regretted  it  more 
than  his  own  sins." 

Here,  again,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  the  parallel 
with  Hamlet, 

Hamlei  was  written  when  it  was  still  believed  that 
Raleigh  had  been  instrumental  in  the  destruction  of 
Essex  ;  but  it  was  also  believed  that  his  deed  was  scarcely 
consummated  before  he  had  felt  remorse.  This  is  the 
exact  situation  of  Laertes,  who  realises  too  late  how  he 
has  been  practised  upon  : 

"  Hamlet ;   Hamlet,  thou  art  slain  ; 
No  medicine  in  the  world  can  do  thee  good  : 
In  thee  there  is  not  half  an  hour  of  life. 
The  treacherous  instrumont  is  in  Ihy  hand, 
Unbated  and  envenomed." 

Sir  Anihony  Weldon  states  that  it  was  loentment 
for  the  death  of  Essex  which  caused  James,  on  his 
accession,  to  be  so  hard  on  Raleigh. 

It  is  probable  also  that  the  grave-digging  scene  owes 
something  to  the  execution  of  Essex.  It  certainly  owes 
nothing  to  the  original  saga  ;  in  the  saga  Amleth  returns 
from  Britain  to  Jutland,  and  finds  the  court  celebrating 
his  own  funeral : 

"  Covered  with  fdth,  he  entered  Iho  br^nquet  room  where 
obiU'quies  were  Ixiing  held  and  strnrk  .-ill  men  utterly  aghast, 
lumour  having  falsely  noi'^.i^d  h1x)i!1  bis  death. 


Hamlet  and  Essex  151 

Before  the  court  can  recover  from  its  astonishment 
Amleth  gets  the  better  of  them  all,  and  burns  them  to 
death  in  the  banqueting  hall.  This  is  also  the  situation  in 
the  Hisiorie  of  Hamblei. 

It  seems  possible  that  this  feigned  funeral  of  Hamlet 
may  have  suggested  the  real  funeral  of  Ophelia  ;  but 
the  conception  of  the  grave-diggers  owes  much  more 
to  contemporary  events.  Essex  was  so  generally  be- 
loved that  the  ordinary  executioner  refused  his  task;  a 
stranger  had  to  be  found  to  behead  the  Earl,  and  the 
man  bungled  his  task  and  performed  it  horribly  ;  the 
anger  of  the  populace  against  him  was  so  great  that  he 
dared  not  appear  in  the  streets  of  London  for  fear  of 
being  IjTiched. 

Edmond  Howes's  continuation  of  Stow's  Chronicle  states  ; 

"The  25  of  February,  being  Ash-wednesday,  about  8.  of 
the  clocke  in  the  morning  was  the  sentence  of  death  executed 
upon  Robert  Devereux  earle  of  Essex,  within  the  Tower  of 
London.  .  .  .  The  hangman  was  beaten  as  hee  returned 
thence,  so  that  the  sheriffes  of  London  were  called  to  assist 
and  rescue  him  from  such  as  would  have  murthered  him." 

Now  in  Hamlet  the  chief  point  of  the  grave-digging 
scene  is  the  way  in  which  the  "  knave  "  insults  the  remains 
of  the  dead,  and  the  immense  helplessness  of  the  dead 
before  these  insults.  The  "  knave "  cares  nothing  for 
the  skulls,  "  he  jowls  "  one  to  the  ground  as  "if  it  were 
Cain's  jawbone  that  did  the  first  murder."  He  knocks 
another  about  the  mazzard  with  his  spade.  It  has  been 
usual  to  explain  the  incident  of  Yorick's  skuU  as  referring 
to  the  recent  death  of  Tarleton,  the  great  comedian  of 
Shakespeare's  company  :    it  may  be  so  ;    but  it  is  much 


152     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

more  probable  that  the  incident  refers  to  Essex  ;  Tarleton 
was  certainly  not  executed,  and  no  one  has  ever  told  us 
that  his  dead  body  was  insulted,  whereas  Yorick's  skull 
must  be  severed  from  his  body,  since  Hamlet  takes  it 
in  his  hands.  Moreover,  Yorick's  skull  is  certainly  in- 
sulted ;  as  acted  on  the  stage  the  clown  usually  strikes 
it  as  he  strikes  the  others.  Yorick  is  described  as  the 
"  king's  jester,"  "  a  fellow  of  infinite  jest,"  "  of  most 
excellent  fancy  "  ;  and  Essex  had  been  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  and  the  wittiest  of  all  the  courtiers. 

Take,  moreover,  the  language  in  which  Hamlet 
addresses  the  skull  when  he  says  :  "  Get  you  to  my  lady's 
chamber,  and  tell  her,  let  her  paint  an  inch  thick,  to  this 
favour  she  must  come  ;  make  her  laugh  at  that." 

This  surely  has  no  suggestion  of  Tarleton  ;  but  it  is 
most  gruesome  and  terrible  if  it  applies  to  Essex ;  it 
reminds  us  of  the  famous  incident  when,  on  his  return 
from  Ireland,  Essex  rushed  into  the  presence  of  his 
queen,  and  found  her  at  her  toilet — probably  dishevelled 
and  painting,  an  incident  which  was  supposed  to  have 
had  a  most  untoward  effect  upon  his  fate.  An  imagina- 
tion worthy  of  Dante  to  make  the  skull  of  the  victim 
interrupt  once  again  at  the  toilette ! 

Here,  also,  we  probably  find  the  reason  for  comparing 
the  skull  to  that  of  Alexander's.  Where  would  be  the 
point  of  comparing  Tarleton's  skull  to  Alexander's,  or 
his  dust  to  that  of  "  imperious  Caesar  "  ;  but  there  is 
real  point  in  comparing  that  of  Essex,  for  Essex  had  been 
one  of  the  most  daring  and  brilliant  soldiers  of  his  day. 
The  exploit  of  Essex  against  Cadiz  was  a  most  brilliant 
feat  of  arms  in  which,  like  Alexander,  he  had  ventured 


Hamlet  and  Essex  153 

almost  single-handed,  into  a  hostile  city  ;  like  Alexander, 
Essex  had  travelled  widely,  and  met  his  enemies  in  distant 
lands  and,  like  him,  he  too  perished  in  his  youth.  Rash- 
ness was  the  quality  of  both,  rashness  and  briUiance 
and  an  early  death.  Hamlet  compares  Yorick's  skull 
to  Alexander's  :  "  Dost  thou  think  Alexander  looked  o' 
this  fashion  i'  the  earth?"  and  again,  "WTiy  may  not 
imagination  trace  the  noble  dust  of  Alexander,  till  he 
find  it  stopping  a  bung-hole." 

"Essex,"  says  Mr  Abbott,  "was  acknowledged,  though  on 
insufficient  grounds  no  doubt,  to  be  the  ablest  general  in 
England  ;  it  was  precisely  because  he  was  acknowledged  to 
be  the  ablest  general  that  he  was  sent  to  Ireland." 

We  may  compare,  also,  the  contemporary  pamphlet. 
Honour  in  Perjection,  by  G.  M.,  usually  attributed  to 
Gervase  Marklam,  which  deals  with  the  house  of  Essex  : 

"  The  noble  world  is  but  a  Theatre  of  Renoune,  the  Tongues 
of  all  people  make  up  but  the  Trumpet  which  speaks  them, 
and  it  is  Etemitie  itself  which  shall  keep  them  unto  ever- 
lasting memorie." 

Moreover,  Essex  himself  had  been  haunted  by  the 
dread  of  ignominy  to  his  body  if  he  died  the  death  of 
a  traitor,  and  had  repeatedly  spoken  of  it ;  even  before 
he  came  into  open  revolt  he  had  been  conscious  of 
exposure  to  low-minded  insults. 

I  quote  the  most  pertinent  extracts  ;  thus,  in  a  letter 
written  to  the  queen  dated  May  20th,  1600,  Essex  says 
of  himself  that  he  feels 

"  as  if  I  were  thrown  into  a  comer  like  a  dead  carcass,  I  am 
gnawed  upon  and  torn  by  the  basest  and  vilest  creatures 


154     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

upon  earth.  The  tavern-haunter  speaks  of  me  what  he  Usts. 
Already  they  print  me  and  make  me  speak  to  the  world,  and 
shortly  they  will  print  me  in  what  forms  they  list  upon  the 
stage."  1 

Now,  surely  we  have  here  remarkable  parallels  to 
the  grave-digging  scene  ;  Yorick's  skull  is  thrown  into 
a  corner,  it  is  "  gnawed  upon  "  by  the  vilest  of  creatures  ; 
the  clown  is  a  tavern-haunter,  for  he  sends  his  boj^  for 
a  "  stoup  of  liquor  "  even  over  his  work,  thus  bringing  the 
dead  insulted  bodies  into  the  closest  connection  with 
the  tavern. 

Moreover,  as  we  see,  Essex  was  confident  that  he  would 
be  represented  on  the  stage  and,  if  so,  why  might  not 
Shakespeare  represent  him  and  defend  him  ? 

Shakespeare  might  have  seen  this  very  letter  before 
it  was  sent  ;  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not. 

On  receiving  sentence,  Essex  said  : 

"  And  I  think  it  fitting  that  my  poor  quarters,  which  have 
done  her  Majesty  true  service  in  divers  parts  of  the  world, 
should  now  at  last  be  sacrificed  and  disposed  of  at  her  Majesty's 
pleasure." 

Compare  this  with  Hamlet's  bitter  irony  : 

"  Imperious  Caesar,  dead  and  turned  to  clay, 
Might  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away."  - 

We  may  compare  the  declaration  of  the  treasons 
uttered  by  a  certain  Abraham  Colfe  referring  to  Essex  ^ : 

"  He  commended  a  great  general  of  the  wars  lately  dead 
whom  he  called  Veri  Dux,  extolling  most  highly  his  infancy, 
young  years,  and  man's  age,  his  embracing  of  learned  men 

'  Birch,  Memoirs  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

-  Act  v.,  i.  ^  State  Papers,  1601. 


Hamlet  and  Essex  155 

and  warriors,  who  all  followed  him  without  pay.  He  named 
the  journey  to  Cadiz,  his  forwardness  there  and  felicity,  and 
how  men  looked  on  his  returning  "  tanquam  in  solem  oc- 
cidentum."  .  .  .  After  his  coming  home  he  was  "  pessime 
tractatus,  quia  cum  esset  imperatorimperatanon  fecerit,"  .  .  . 
His  virtue  which  drew  upon  him  the  en\'y  of  great  personages 
was  the  cause  of  his  overthrow. 

"...  His  enemies  accused  him  of  aspiring  to  a  kingdom.  .  .  . 
He  showed  how  the  executioners  had  three  strokes  at  his 
head,  that  his  very  enemies  could  not  choose  but  weep  when 
they  saw  his  head  cut  off.  .  .  .  His  conclusion  was,  ' '  You 
have  heard  of  the  Ufe  and  death  of  a  worthy  general." 

Surely,  we  have  here  the  same  train  of  thought  as  in 
Shakespeare ;  the  insulted  dead,  the  shamed  and  humili- 
ated dust  and  the  "  great  general,"  so  great  that  he  is 
compared  to  an  emperor  and  the  leader  of  his  country. 
History  does  not  record  that  the  dust  of  Alexander 
"  stopped  a  bung-hole,"  or  that  the  dust  of  Caesar 
"  patched  a  hole  to  expel  the  winter's  flaw"  ;  but  pro- 
found humiliation  certainly  happened  to  the  dust  of 
Essex. 

Remember  that  the  execution  of  Essex  was  still  the 
grief  of  the  whole  country  when  Hamlet  was  pla5'ed,  and 
let  us  ask  ourselves  what  Shakespeare's  audience  would 
be  likely  to  think. 

Another  point  to  notice  is  that,  before  his  death,  Essex 
most  passionately  desired  reconciliation  with  those  whom 
he  had  esteemed  his  enemies.  He  professed  to  bear  no 
malice  to  Lord  Cobham  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and,  as 
already  quoted,^  the  latter  is  said  to  have  shed  tears  when 
he  witnessed  the  execution  of  Essex, 

1  Birch,  Memoirs  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 


156     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

We  may  compare  the  reconciliation  of  Hamlet  and 
Laertes. 

"  Exchange  forgiveness  with  me,  noble  Hamlet ; 
Mine  and  my  father's  death  come  not  upon  thee. 
Nor  thine  on  me," 

and  Hamlet's  reply  : 

"  Heaven  make  thee  free  of  it."  ' 

Laertes  is  stabbed  by  the  "  envenomed  foil  "  prepared 
for  Hamlet,  and,  as  he  himself  says  : 

"  I  am  justly  kill'd  with  mine  own  treachery." 

So  was  Raleigh  destroyed  by  the  same  methods  of  slander 
which  he  had  himself  employed  against  Essex. 

I  turn  now  to  an  incident  which  has  always  puzzled 
commentators :  the  fight  between  Hamlet  and  Laertes 
in  the  grave. 

Campbell  points  out  that  Hamlet's  love  for  Ophelia 
only  seems  to  occur  in  certain  portions  of  the  play  and 
that,  for  instance,  the  burial  scene  seems  to  show  an 
almost  complete  absence  of  it : 

"  Had  it  been  in  the  mind  of  Shakespeare  to  show  Hamlet  in 
the  agony  of  hopeless  despair  he  must  at  that  moment  have 
been,  had  Ophelia  been  all  in  all  to  him  ...  is  there  in  all 
his  writings  so  utter  a  failure  in  the  attempt  to  give  vent  to 
an  overwhelming  passion  ?  ...  It  seems  not  a  Uttle  un- 
accountable that  Hamlet  should  have  been  so  slightly  affected 
by  her  death." 

Campbell  points  out  that  Hamlet's  real  motive  in 
leaping  into  the  grave  appears  to  be,  not  love  for  Ophelia 

'  Act  v..  u. 


Ilamlet  and  Essex  157 

at  all,  but  rivalry  with  Laertes — a  very  different  passion. 
Campbell  continues  : 

"  Wlien  Hamlet  leaps  into  the  grave  do  we  see  in  that 
any  power  of  love  ?  I  am  sorrj'  to  confess  that  to  me  the 
whole  of  that  scene  is  merely  painful.  It  is  anger  with 
Laertes,  not  love  for  Ophelia,  that  makes  Hamlet  leap  into 
the  grave.  Laertes'  conduct,  he  tells  us  afterwards,  put  him 
into  a  towering  passion — a  state  of  mind  which  it  is  not  easy 
to  reconcile  with  any  kind  of  sorrow  for  the  dead  Ophelia. 
But  had  he  been  attempting  to  describe  the  behaviour  of  an 
impassioned  lover  at  the  grave  of  his  beloved  I  should  be 
compelled  to  feel  that  he  had  not  merely  departed  from 
nature,  but  that  he  had  offered  her  the  most  profane  violation 
and  insult." 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  fight  in  the  grave  may  perhaps 
be  best  interpreted  as  symbolic.  The  whole  Elizabethan 
age  was  passing  away  ;  its  glories  were  decaying  and 
most  of  its  great  men  were  already  dead  ;  of  those  who 
remained,  the  most  distinguished — Essex  and  Raleigh — 
were  flying  at  each  other's  throats,  eager  to  destroy  each 
other ;  their  queen  was  the  shadow  of  herself,  anyone 
knew  she  might  die  at  any  moment,  and  it  was  precisely 
over  the  question  of  her  succession  that  the  most  violent 
quarrels  broke  out.  The  clown  when  first  asked  for 
whom  the  grave  was  made  replies  that  it  is  for  no  man  or 
no  woman  neither,  and  a  little  later  on  explains :  "  One 
that  was  a  woman,  sir,  but,  rest  her  soul,  she's  dead." 
It  may  be  meant  to  symbolise  the  burial  of  a  whole  age. 
Hamlet  and  Laertes  both  profess  that  their  motive  for 
the  quarrel  in  the  grave  is  their  love  for  Ophelia,  and 
they  "  outface  "  each  other  in  their  professions  of  affection 
to  her,   the  result  being    this  disgraceful  insult  to  her 


158     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

memory.  Surely  if  it  is  meant  as  a  symbol  it  is  terribly 
appropriate,  the  last  great  Elizabethans  destrojang  each 
other  over  the  very  body  of  their  mistress,  all  the  time 
professing  their  love,  and  a  crafty  enemy  taking  advan- 
tage of  their  quarrel  to  destroy  them  both.  I  can  see  no 
reason  why  Shakespeare  should  not  introduce,  at  least,  an 
element  of  symbolism  into  his  plays  ;  the  greatest  of  his 
predecessors — Spenser — wrote  a  poem  which  is  one  mass 
of  symbolism  ;  symbolism  was  one  of  the  chief  methods 
in  the  religious  drama  which  preceded  Shakespeare's, 
and  in  one  of  his  chief  dramatic  predecessors — Lj'ly. 

Another  scene  which  may  possibly  have  been  suggested 
by  the  Essex  stor}^  is  the  casket  scene  between  Hamlet 
and  Ophelia  when  Ophelia  returns  the  casket  of  his 
letters,  declaring  that  they  were  love  letters,  and  Hamlet 
is  immediately  enraged,  and  suspects  her  honesty. 

We  learn  from  the  State  Papers}  that  the  Countess  of 
Essex  had  been  used  as  an  instrument  to  betray  her 
husband.  In  June  1601,  there  was  a  long  examination 
in  the  Star  Chamber  concerning  a  casket  of  letters  which 
the  Countess  of  Essex  had  entrusted  to  a  certain  Jane 
Daniells  who  had  also  been  her  gentlewoman. 

"  Jane's  husband  stole  a  number  of  the  letters  to  have 
them  copied.   .  .   . 

"  The  countess  was  greatly  afraid  that  the  Earl  would  be 
angry  with  her  for  suffering  his  long  and  passionate  love-letters 
to  be  spread  abroad  .  .  .  she  swore  they  were  not  dangerous. 
.  .  .  Daniells  demanded  three  thousand  pounds  to  give  them 
back  and  the  Countess  was  forced  to  sell  her  jewels.  .   .  . 

"  At  the  time  of  the  Earl's  arraignment  he  pretended  that 

^  Ed.  Green. 


Hamlet  and  Essex  159 

the  aforementioned  letters  had  been  stolen  and  counterfeited 
by  his  adversaries.   .   .  . 

"  The  Court,  pitying  the  Countess,  .  .  .  cleared  her  from  all 
suspicion  of  any  ill  intention  towards  her  late  husband." 

Here,  again,  we  surely  ha\'e  close  parallels.  Hamlet's 
love-letters  to  Ophelia  are  intercepted  and  stolen ; 
Hanilet  asserts  that  he  never  gave  her  anything,  while 
she  asserts  that  he  did,  but  that  the  gifts  were  love-letters 
and  jewels  ;  moreover,  this  very  casket  scene  is  used 
as  a  means  to  decoy  Hamlet  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies, 
and  Ophelia  is  the  innocent  and  unwilling  instrument, 
overwhelmed  with  distress  by  Hamlet's  anger. 

The  parallel  is,  once  again,  suspiciously  close,  and  this 
also  is  a  scene  which  has  no  parallel  whatever  in  the 
so-called  literary  source. 

We  may  observe  that  Ophelia's  description  of  her 
lover  stands  out  sharply  from  the  Hamlet  of  much  of 
the  play,  the  Hamlet  who  resembles  James  I.,  though 
Ophelia's  description  of  her  lover  would  serve  admir- 
ably for  the  Earl  of  Essex.  She  expressly  tells  us  that 
the  Hamlet  she  had  loved  was  both  a  "courtier"  and 
"  a  soldier." 

"  O,  what  a  noble  mind  is  here  o'erthrown  ! 
The  couitier's,  soldier's,  scholar's,  eye,  tongue,  sword  : 
The  expel- lancy  and  rose  of  the  fair  state. 
The  glass  of  fashion  and  the  mould  of  form, 
The  obsolved  of  all  observers,  quite,  quite,  down!  " 

Wlicn  was  the  Hamlet  of  Hie  rest  of  the  play  a  soldier  ? 
Does  he  not  expressly  dislike  bloodshed  ? 
How   can    lie  have  been   a  com  tier   ^lion  he  so  ex- 


i6o     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

pressly  despises  all  the  tricks  of  courtiers  ?  How  can 
he  have  been  the  "  glass  of  fashion,"  and  the  "  mould 
of  form,"  when  he  thoroughly  despised  dress  and 
habiliments  ? 

How  can  he  have  been  the  "  observed  of  all  ob- 
servers ?  "  when  he  shrank  from  notice,  and  desired 
the  privacy  of  study  ?  How  can  he  have  been  "  un- 
matched in  form  and  feature"  when,  according  to  his 
own  mother,  he  was  "  fat  and  scant  of  breath." 
Ophelia's  lover  is  so  different  from  the  Hamlet  of 
most  of  the  play  as  to  suggest  that  he  reallj'  was  a 
different  person,  which  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
this  Hamlet  forgets  all  about  her,  and  never  even  refers 
to  her  in  his  soliloquies. 

Mr  Bradley  gives  an  admirable  summary  of  this  curious 
indifference  from  which  I  quote  a  portion  : 

(i)  How  is  it  that,  in  his  first  soliloquj',  Hamlet  makes 
no  reference  whatever  to  Ophelia  ? 

(2)  How  is  it  that, J  in  his  second  soliloquy,  on  the 
departure  of  the  ghost,  he  again  says  nothing  about  her  ? 

•  ••••• 

(5)  In  what  way  are  Hamlet's  insults  to  Ophelia  at 
the  play  scene  necessarj^  either  to  his  purpose  of  con- 
vincing her  of  his  insanity  or  to  his  purpose  of  revenge  ? 

(6)  How  is  it  that  neither  when  he  kills  Polonius, 
nor  afterwards,  does  he  reflect  that  he  has  killed 
Ophelia's  father,  or  what  the  effect  on  Ophelia  is  likely 
to  be  ? 

(7)  .  .  .  there  is  no  reference  to  Ophelia  in  the  solilo- 
quies of  the  first  act,  nor  in  those  of  any  of  the  other 
acts. 


Hamlet  and  Essex  i6i 

(8)  In  speaking  to   Horatio,   Hamlet  never  mentions 
Ophelia,  and  at  his  death  he  says  nothing  of  her. 


It  seems  to  me  that  these  facts  are  practically  impossible 
to  explain  if  Hamlet  is  to  be  interpreted  as  psychology  ; 
but  if  it  is  to  be  interpreted  as  mainly  historical  they 
are  simple  enough.  We  may  compare  with  Ophelia's 
description  of  her  lover,  the  description  of  Essex  appended 
to  the  account  of  his  trial  in  1649  : 

"  There  sleeps  great  Essex,  darling  of  Mankind, 
Fair  Honour's  lamp,  foul  envie's  prey,  Art's  fame, 
Nature's  pride,  Virtue's  bulwark,  lure  of  JVIind, 
Wisdom's  flower,  Valour's  tower,  Fortune's  Shame, 
England's  Sun,  Belgia's  light,  France's  star,  Spain's  thunder 
Lisbon's  lightning,  Ireland's  cloud,  the  whole  world's 
wonder." 

Here  we  have  all  the  characteristics  of  OpheHa's  lover : 
we  have  the  courtier,  the  soldier  and  the  scholar,  the 
model  for  the  whole  world,  and  the  flower  of  beauty 
as  well. 

There  still  remains  for  remark  one  portion  of  the  death- 
scene  of  Hamlet ;  that  concerning  the  arrival  of  Fortin- 
bras  as  heir  to  the  kingdom,  accompanied  by  his  army. 
There  is  nothing  whatever  to  explain  this  either  in  Saxo 
Grammaticus  or  in  the  Hystorie  oj  Hamblet ;  there  could 
not  be,  as  in  both  these  accounts  Hamlet  himself  takes 
the  crown.  Neither  is  there  anything  whatever  in 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet  which  explains  why  Fortinbras 
should  be  the  heir.  At  the  beginning  of  the  play  we 
are  told  by  Horatio  that  Fortinbras  lays  claim  to  "  certain 

L 


l62     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

lands  "  which  his  father  had  lost  to  the  elder  Hamlet, 
and  was,  therefore,  threatening  Denmark  with  war,^  but 
Horatio  never  suggests  that  Fortinbras  is,  in  any  sense 
whatever,  the  heir  of  Denmark.  Why  should  he  be? 
He  belongs  to  Norway,  and  not  a  hint  is  given  us  as  to 
any  legal  or  dynastic  claim  he  may  have  on  Denmark. 
Yet,  in  the  last  scene,  Hamlet  acknowledges  him  as  his 
true  successor. 

Surely  all  this  is  very  strange.  The  clue  seems  to  me 
to  be  found  once  again  in  historical  events. 

It  seems  to  have  been  an  essential  part  of  the  Essex 
plot  that  James  should  be  ready  to  support  his  claim 
to  the  succession  by  force  of  arms. 

Mr  John  Bruce  says  ^  : 

"  It  seems  clear  that  Essex  had  been  in  correspondence 
with  James  ever  since  1598.  .  .  .  Montjoy  in  the  depth  of 
his  solicitude,  .  .  .  sent  his  Scottish  Majesty  a  '  project,' 
the  effect  of  which  was  that  James  should  prepare  an  army, 
should  march  at  the  head  of  it  to  tlie  borders  and  there  ful- 
minate a  demand  to  the  English  government  of  an  open 
declaration  to  the  right  of  the  succession,  should  support  the 
demand  by  sending  an  ambassador  into  England,  and  of 
course,  although  not  so  stated,  if  his  demand  were  refused, 
should  cross  the  borders  as  an  invader.  ..." 

James  was  greatly  grieved  by  the  fate  of  Essex,  and 
termed  him  his  martyr.  As  early  as  November  1599, 
when  under  the  influence  of  Essex,  James  procured  to 
be  suggested  to  his  principal  nobility  of  Scotland,  that 
they  should  enter  into  a  league  or  "  Band  "  for  the  pre- 
servation of  his  person  and  the  pursuit  of  his  right  to 

•  Act  I.,  i.  *  Introduction  to  James's  Letters. 


Hamlet  and  Essex  163 

the  crowns  of  England  and  Ireland.  Such  an  engagement 
was  willingly  entered  into.   .  .  . 

He  also  solicited  from  his  parliament  ...  a  liberal 
grant  for  warlike  purposes  in  reference  to  the  succession. 
"  H2  was  not  certain,"  he  told  them,  "  how  soon  he 
should  have  to  use  arms ;  but  whenever  it  should  be,  he 
knew  his  right  and  would  venture  crown  and  all  for 
it.  .  .  .  The  '  Band  '  of  the  nobles  was  sufficiently  well- 
known  in  England." 

I  have  already  quoted  Malone  to  the  effect  that  the 
last  words  of  Horatio  over  Hamlet  are  the  dying  words 
of  Essex.  Let  us  refer  to  the  last  words  of  Hamlet 
himself : 

"  I  cannot  live  to  hear  the  news  from  England  ; 
But  I  do  prophesy  the  election  lights 
On  Fortinbras  :   he  has  my  dying  voice  ; 
So  tell  him,  with  the  occurrents,  more  and  less, 
Which  have  solicited.     The  rest  is  silence." 

Surely  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  dramatise  the 
situation  more  closely  ?  We  have  the  heir  who  belongs 
to  another  kingdom  altogether  — a  more  northern  one — 
who  is  entering  to  iiiake  good  his  right  at  the  head  of  his 
army.  We  must  remember  that,  when  Hamlet  was 
written,  it  was  still  thought  that  such  an  armed  m- 
tervention  might  be  necessary.  Hamlet  cannot  Uve,  as 
Essex  could  not  live,  to  "  hear  the  news  from  England  "  ; 
but  he  prophesies  that  the  "  election "  will  hght  on 
Fortinbras  and,  in  any  case,  he  gives  his  "  dying  voice  " 
for  him.  Fortinbras  commands  that  Hamlet's  body 
shall  be  placed  "  on  a  stage,"  a  curious  detail  in  itself, 
and  one  that  suggests  the  "  stage  "  of  execution. 


164     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Also,  Fortinbras  coinniaiids  that  full  lionours  shall 
be  paid  to  the  body  of  Hamlet;  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  James  did  acknowledge  his  debt  to  Essex,  for  he 
restoied  his  family  to  titfe  and  honours'  and  set  free  his* 
followers.         -'-■'-  '       ' 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONCLUSION 

And  now,  what  is  our  main  conclusion  to  be  ?  It  seems 
to  me  absolutely  certain  that  the  historical  analogues 
exist ;  that  they  are  important,  numerous,  detailed  and 
undeniable.  There  are,  however,  three  possible  ex- 
planations as  to  how  they  get  in  the  play  : 

(i)  We  may  say  ihat  they  belong  to  the  "  atmo- 
sphere "  of  the  time  and  get  in  unconsciously. 
Shakespeare  sees  these  things  around  him,  and 
without  knowing  it,  incorporates  them  in  his 
drama. 

(2)  Shakespeare  is  writing  a  literar}-  drama  in  which 

he    incorporates    a    certain    amount    of    contem- 
porary history  deliberately  and  of  set  purpose. 

(3)  Shakespeare  is  writing  what  is  practically  a  piece 

of    mythology ;     it    consists   mainly   of   contem- 
porary   histoiy   only    fitted    in    to    a    dramatic 
frame. 
Now,  it  appears  to  me  that  (i)  may  be  rejected  ab- 
solutely :    the  historical  resemblances  are   so  important 
on  the  one  hand,  so  numerous,  detailed  and  close  on  the 
other,  that  it  does  not  seem  to  me  they  can  have  got  in 
by  any  form  of  accident ;    when  we  reflect,  moreover, 
that  they  were  all  events  of  immediate  interest  the  sup- 
position ii  practically  inipos^sible 


1 66     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

To  me  the  only  choice  Hes  between  (2)  and  (3).  I 
leave  it  to  each  reader  to  decide  as  to  which  alternative 
seems  the  more  likely. 

One  thing  seems,  at  any  rate,  absolutely  certain,  that 
Shakespeare  is  using  a  large  element  of  contemporary 
history  in  Hamlet. 

It  appears  to  me  that  in  the  total  construction  of  the 
play,  the  literary  source  is  comparatively  unimportant, 
and  the  historical  source  exceedingly  important. 

All  the  things  that  give  us  the  essence  of  the  Shake- 
spearean drama  are  really  historical ;  the  secret  murder, 
the  use  of  poison,  the  voice  of  accusation  heard  in  the 
night,  the  graphic  representation  reproducing  the  murder, 
the  crucial  character  of  Hamlet  himself  with  his  hesitancy 
and  his  reluctance  to  punish — the  centre  of  the  whole 
— the  character  of  Claudius  and  his  attitude  towards 
Hamlet,  the  murder  of  Polonius,  the  character  of  Polonius, 
Hamlet's  relation  to  the  Players,  the  treatment  of  the 
Play  which  brings  Hamlet's  own  neck  into  jeopardy, 
the  love-story  of  Ophelia,  the  casket  motive,  the  madness 
motive,  the  rivalry  between  Hamlet  and  Laertes,  the 
way  in  which  they  are  pitted  against  each  otlier  so  that 
both  may  be  destroyed,  the  grave-digger's  scene,  the  fight 
in  the  grave,  the  entrance  of  Fortinbras — for  all  these 
no  analogues  can  be  found  in  the  saga  source  (either 
Saxo  or  Belief orest),  and  very  minute  and  close  analogues 
can  be  found  in  the  contemporary  history  of  most 
immediate  interest. 

The  Essex  conspiracy  and  the  Scottish  succession 
were  the  questions  of  burning  interest  at  the  time,  any 
audience    would   be   certain   to   feel   their    appeal    and 


Conclusion  167 

Shakespeare  himself,  as  I  have  shown,  had  a  double  reason 
for  a  strong  personal  interest. 

These  events  involved  the  fate  of  his  dramatic  company 
which  was  compromised  by  its  connection  with  the 
Essex  conspiracy  and  involved  the  fate  of  the  man  who 
was  certainl}'  his  patron  and  possibly  his  dearest  friend 
— Southampton — and  who  was  even  then  in  danger  of 
death.  Shakespeare  desired  to  write  about  these 
subjects,  and  he  did  write  about  them,  only  he  called 
them  something  else. 

We  have  good  reasons  for  believing  that  this  method 
was  fairly  often  followed. 

(i)  The  authorities  continually  suspected  the  players 
of  introducing  political  motives  into  their  plays. 

(2)  Dr  Haywarde  was  accused  of  having  turned 
Henry  IV.  into  a  contemporary  parallel. 

(3)  Shakespeare's  company  were  accused  of  having 
done  the  same  thing  in  Richard  II.  ;  Shakespeare's  own 
play. 

(4)  Shakespeare  himself  has  shown  us  in  Hamlet's 
treatment  of  the  Gonzago  play  both  how  it  could  be 
done,  and  how  dangerous  it  was  to  do  it. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Shakespeare  selected  the  Anileih 
saga  in  almost  precisely  the  spirit  in  which  Hamlet 
selected  the  Gonzago  story.  The  Amleth  story  was 
suflficiently  well-known  to  be  excellent  as  a  disguise,  it 
was  sufficiently  remote  to  place  no  restrictions  upon  his 
handling,  he  was  free  to  modify  it  as  much  as  he  chose, 
and  he  did  modify  it  till  there  was  hardly  any  of  the 
nrjginal  left. 

tt   is   If  it,  I    r'niok,  in  tlie  least   difficult   to  see  how 


1 68     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Shakespeare  would  naturally  arrive  at  such  a  method 
of  construction. 

We  cannot,  I  think,  postulate  with  certainty  many 
things  concerning  him,  but  there  are  two  we  do  certainly 
know :  one  is  that  he  was  a  man  intensely  interested 
in  human  nature  as  such,  from  the  statecraft  of  kings 
and  princes  down  to  the  ways  of  ostlers  baiting  their 
horses  at  an  inn  ;  the  second  is  that,  as  shown  by  such 
passages  as  the  speech  of  Henry  V.  before  Agincourt  and 
the  dying  speech  of  John  of  Gaunt  in  Richard  II.,  Shake- 
speare must  have  been  an  intensely  patriotic  Englishman. 

Such  a  man  would  naturally  commence  his  career 
by  attempting  to  dramatise  history,  a  course  which  would 
gratify  at  once  his  love  of  reality  and  his  patriotism. 
This  is  exactly  what  Shakespeare  did  in  the  long  series 
of  the  historical  dramas. 

However,  in  the  course  of  writing  these  dramas,  he 
must  have  discovered  that  the  choice  of  historical  material 
unduly  fettered  his  genius.  Even  in  the  historical  dramas 
themselves  Shakespeare  is  impelled  to  take  great  liberties 
both  with  chronology  and  with  character. 

Thus  he  alters  considerably  the  age  of  Harry  Percy 
to  make  him  more  clearly  a  rival  to  Prince  Hal.  In 
the  second  part  of  Henry  IV.,  also,  the  chronology  is  very 
curiously  changed  so  as  to  convey  the  impression  that 
the  events  occupy  very  much  less  space  of  time  than  they 
actually  did  occupy.^  The  space  of  eight  years  must  elapse 
between  the  different  portions  of  Act  IV.,  but  the  impres- 
sion given  by  the  play  is  certainl}'  that  of  a  few  days  only. 

>  See  my  edition,  Henry  IV.,  Part  II.  D.(  C.  Heath  &  Co., 
Boston,  U.S.A.). 


G#nclusion  169 

Nor  is  chronology  the  onh-  difficulty.  In  history, 
the  interest  is  too  much  diffused  and  is  dissipated  over 
too  large  a  number  of  characters  and  incidents ;  it  is 
distracted  instead  of  being  concentrated,  and  Shake- 
speare continually  allows  the  dramatic  stress  to  fall  where 
the  historic  stress  does  not  fall  or  would  not  naturally 
fall. 

Moreover,  it  is  possible  that  even  here  he  allows  himself 
to  be  deflected  or,  at  least,  influenced  by  contemporary 
events.  'WTiy,  for  example,  is  Falconbridge  the  real 
hero  of  King  John  ? 

This  is  hardly  true  to  the  history  of  that  reign  even 
as  the  Elizabethans  conceived  it. 

It  has  often  been  suggested  that  the  prominence  given 
to  Falconbridge  owes  something  to  Shakespeare's  sym- 
pathy for  Sir  John  Perrot.  Perrot,  also,  was  the  illegiti- 
mate son  of  a  king,  a  soldier,  a  patriot,  a  man  whose 
blunt  speech  got  him  into  trouble. 

In  1592  he  was  tried  for  high  treason,  and  condemned 
to  death,  though  his  death  in  the  Tower  forestalled  his 
execution. 

This  may,  or  may  not,  be  the  true  motive  for  the 
prominence  given  to  Falconbridge ;  but  whatever  the 
motive,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Shakespeare  la5's  the 
dramatic  stress  where  the  historic  stress  would  not 
naturally  fall. 

In  the  two  parts  of  Henry  IV.,  the  same  tendency  is 
accentuated,  for  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  dramatic  stress 
falls  upon  the  character  of  Falstaff  who  certainly  did 
not  boar  tlie  historic  stress  ;  if  we  change  the  name  to 
Oldcastle,    the   prominence  given   is  le^s   extraordinary, 


i/o     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

though  still  remarkable.  Ex-en  here,  it  is  probable  that 
the  desire  to  annoy  Cobham,  the  Puritan  persecutor  of 
the  stage  and  one  of  Essex's  chief  enemies,  was  a  leading 
motive.  At  any  rate,  Cobham  took  it  so  ;  he  complained, 
the  name  was  altered,  and  Shakespeare  inserted  an 
apology  to  the  effect,  ' '  Oldcastle  died  a  martyr,  and  this 
is  not  the  man." 

Both  here  and  in  the  case  of  Fakonbridge,  it  seems 
probable  that  we  have  contemporary  events  influencing 
even  the  case  of  the  definitely  historical  dramas  and 
producing  a  deflection  of  the  historic  stress.  This  was 
certainly  the  method  the  authorities  suspected  both  in 
Henry  IV.  and  in  Richard  II. 

And  now  let  us  ask  what  a  dramatist  who  arrived 
at  this  point  in  his  artistic  development  would  be  likely 
to  do  ?  He  has  an  immense  love  for  reality,  he  wishes 
to  describe  real  life  as  it  is  actually  lived  ;  his  audience 
take  an  intense  interest  in  the  personalities  and  politics 
of  the  time,  and  having  no  newspapers,  are  particularly 
anxious  to  see  them  discussed  upon  the  stage  ;  also  the 
poet  is  patriotic,  and  wishes  to  deal  with  questions  of 
national  importance.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has  dis- 
covered that  history,  as  it  is  actually  lived,  is  not  really 
a  good  subject  for  dramatic  treatment  because  its  interest 
is  too  much  diffused  and  its  subject  is  too  inelastic.  Even 
if  it  were  good  material,  which  it  is  not,  there  remains 
the  unvarying  difficulty  of  the  censorship  which  forbids 
him  to  make  political  references  and  has  already,  in 
Henry  IV.  and  Richard  II.,  protested  against  his  doing 
so. 

The  obvious  expedient  is  surely  to  take  historic  material, 


Conclusion  171 

preferably  those  contemporary  events  in  which  he  and 
his  audience  are  most  interested,  and  to  alter  them  until 
they  become  good  dramatic  material,  concentrating  the 
interest,  missing  out  all  that  cannot  be  got  into  a  dramatic 
frame  or  which  is  irrelevant. 

In  this  way  a  really  excellent  drama  could  be  built 
up,  only  it  would  not  be  historic  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  term  ;  the  poet  might,  therefore,  call  it  by 
another  name  ;  in  that  case  he  would  gain  two  great 
advantages. 

(i)  He  would  be  able  to  modify  the  history  as  much 
as  necessary  to  suit  his  artistic  purpose.  (2)  He  would 
be  able  to  deal  with  contemporary  events  without  falling 
under  the  ban  of  the  censorship. 

If  this  plan  were  followed,  the  first  necessity  would, 
of  course,  be  to  choose  a  novel  or  story  whose  outline 
resembled  the  one  desired,  and  then  to  modify  it  freely 
just  as  Dr  Haywarde  was  accused  of  doing  in  the  case 
of  Henry  IV.,  and  just  as  Hamlet  did  in  the  Gonzago 
play. 

As  we  have  seen,  it  was  a  main  count  in  the  indict- 
ment against  Essex  that  he  had  allowed  and  connived 
at  this  method  of  procedure,  both  in  Haywarde's  history 
and  in  Shakespeare's  play  of  Richard  II.  Essex  and 
Southampton,  like  Hamlet,  both  damaged  themselves 
by  their  political  association  with  players. 

Shakespeare  has  the  strongest  political  motive  for 
treating  history  in  this  fashion  ;  he  has  also  the  strongest 
artistic  motive,  for  a  man  naturally  writes  with  more 
passion  nnd  fervour  <-{\  subjects  which  interest  him 
profoundly.     T.i^t  "is  suiMiMibe  briefly  the  way  in  which 


172     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

we  have  found  political  history  to  be  used  as  material 
in  the  case  of  Hamlet. 

(i)  At  the  period  when  Hamlet  was  written,  the  two 
great  subjects  of  universal  interest  were  the  question  of 
the  Scottish  succession  and  the  fate  of  the  Essex 
conspirators ;  moreover,  these  two  subjects  were  so 
intimatel}'  connected  that  they  formed  but  one  in  the 
popular  mind  and,  therefore,  in  treating  them  as 
one,  Shakespeare  would  be  simply  working  to  a  unity 
already  existing  in  the  minds  of  his  audience.  The  fate 
of  Essex  and  the  fate  of  James  have  been  blent  in  one 
destiny,  and  Shakspeare  sees  that,  by  blending 
them  in  one  play,  he  can  make  a  really  magnificent 
drama. 

(2)  Shakespeare  himself  is  particularly  and  passionately 
interested  in  both  these  subjects,  not  only  as  every 
patriotic  Englishman  must  be  interested  in  the  fate  of 
his  country,  but  because  the  fate  of  his  dramatic  company 
has  been  involved  in  that  of  the  Essex  conspirators  and 
because  his  best  beloved  friend  is  even  then  in  danger 
of  death. 

(3)  This  theme,  as  it  stands,  cannot  be  treated  under 
actual  names,  partly  because  it  vdW  only  become  dramatic 
ij  concentrated,  and  partly  because  the  censorship  will 
intervene  if  real  names  are  employed. 

(4)  Shakespeare  evades  both  difficulties  by  choosing 
as  a  disguise,  the  story  of  Hamlet ;  this  enables  him  to 
concentrate  the  history  and  so  turn  it  into  magnificent 
dramatic  material  and  it  enables  him,  also,  to  evade 
the  censorship. 

(5)  The  process  resu.lts  in  what  might   be   termed  a 


Conclusion  173 

"  doubling  of  parts,"  so  that  one  dramatic  figure  serves 
for  two  or  more  historic  personages. 

(6)  Hamlet  is  mainly  James  I.,  but  there  are  certainly 
large  elements  in  his  character  and  story  taken  from 
Essex,  and  probably  some  from  Southampton.  It  is 
only  the  "  melancholy  "  Essex  of  the  last  fatal  years 
who  could  thus  be  combined  with  the  more  sombre  James, 
and  even  so  the  character  has  been  found  by  many 
eminent  critics  to  be  not  psj^chologically  consistent,  and 
by  almost  all  critics  to  be  particularly  difiicult  to  in- 
terpret as  a  unity. 

(7)  Claudius,  in  the  murder  portion  of  the  story,  re- 
presents the  elder  Bothwell,  in  his  relations  to  Hamlet 
the  younger  Bothw-ell ;  his  attitude  towards  Laertes 
and  Hamlet  is  that  of  Robert  Cecil  towards  Raleigh  and 
Essex.  His  character  is  largely  that  of  the  elder 
Bothwell  as  drawn  by  Buchanan,  but  with  added  elements 
of  subtlety  and  treachery.  Here  again,  the  blending  of 
the  two  subjects  works  into  a  unity. 

(8)  Polonius,  in  most  of  the  relations  of  his  life,  is  a 
minute  and  careful  study  of  Burleigh,  but  his  end  is 
the  dramatic  end  of  Rizzio.  Here  again,  the  two  subjects 
are  blent  into  a  unity. 

(9)  The  play  has  two  sources :  the  Amleth  saga  and 
contemporary  history,  of  which  the  latter  is  by  far  the 
more  important.  The  intense  vibrating,  passionate 
interest  of  the  play  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  subject  was,  of  all  possible  subjects,  the  one  most 
near  to  the  poet  and  his  audience,  its  eminently 
artistic  form  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  poet  has 
moulded  his  material  as  much  as  he  pleased,  and  that 


174     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

his  guiding  principle  has  always  been  the  artistic  and 
dramatic  effect. 

If  the  account  given  above  of  Hamlet  be  really  correct, 
then  the  play  is  mythology  rather  than  psychology,  or, 
perhaps,  it  would  be  fairer  to  define  it  as  mythology 
on  its  way  towards  psychology.  For  a  variety  of  reasons 
this  seems  to  me  inherently  plausible.  To  interpret 
Shakespeare  almost  exactly  as  if  he  were  nineteenth- 
century  psychology  is  surely  to  thrust  him  out  of  his 
place  in  the  order  of  development.  The  psychology 
of  the  sixteenth  century  cannot  exactly  resemble  ours, 
and  must  have  some  points  of  difference.  Why  not  this 
resemblance  to  mythology  ? 

In  the  second  place,  as  even  such  a  thorough-going 
psychologist  as  Mr  Bradley  admits,  some,  at  any  rate, 
of  Shakespeare's  plays  do  produce  very  much  the  effect 
of  ancient  mythology.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  effect 
is  characteristic  of  a  good  many  :  that  Shakespeare's 
Hamlet,  his  Lear,  his  Prospero,  can  hold  their  own  even 
beside  Achilles  and  Priam,  (Edipus,  Arthur,  and  Merlin. 
They  are  as  universal  and  as  romantic. 

Now,  we  know  that  the  great  mythologic  figures  were, 
in  all  probability,  created  in  some  such  way  as  the  one 
suggested  above.  They  were  not  copied  by  the  poets 
from  individuals,  still  less  were  they  pure  fiction  ;  thej^ 
probably  represent  accretions  round  some  historic  centre. 
Every  student  of  early  history  knows  the  facility  with 
which  two  or  more  historic  figures  become  grouped  in 
one,  especially  when  they  belong  to  the  same  family,  or 
have  the  same  name,  or  perform  similar  exploits. 

Now,  this  mythologic  method  was  quite  well  known 


Conclusion  175 

to  Shakespeare's  predecessors  and  contemporaries.  As 
I  have  shown  elsewhere,^  Shakespeare's  greatest  con- 
temporary— Spenser — writes  what  is  practically  a  kind 
of  mythology.  He  repeatedly  2  states  that  fairyland  is 
really  England,  and  that  The  Faerie  Queene  really  stands 
for  his  own  age  and  time,  I  think  most  readers  will 
agree  with  me  that  The  Faerie  Queene  looks  even  less 
like  contemporary  history  than  do  Shakespeare's  plays, 
yet  we  have  the  repeated  assurance  of  its  own  author 
that  it  is. 

Now,  Spenser  certainly  seems  to  use  the  method  I 
have  described  above  :  that  of  historic  accretions  grouped 
around  some  central  figure.  This  is  most  obvious  in 
Book  v.,  where  we  are  able  to  see  with  perfect  plainness 
that  Artegall  must  represent  both  Arthur,  Lord  Grey  of 
Wilton,  and  also  Leicester,  for  he  performs  both  Grey's 
exploits  in  Ireland  and  Leicester's  in  the  Low  Countries. 
I  have  also  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  same  principle 
applies  with  regard  to  the  other  characters  ;  that  Duessa 
is  both  Mary  Tudor  and  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  that  L^na 
represents  sometimes  the  experiences  of  Anne  Boleyn, 
sometimes  those  of  Ehzabeth. 

Nor  is  the  mythological  method  confined  to  Spenser ! 
A  somewhat  similar  method  is  employed  by  Lyly,  one 
of  the  dramatic  predecessors  who  influenced  Shakespeare 
most.  Lyly  writes  plays  which  are  ostensibly  classical 
mythology,  but  which  are  in  reahty  a  kind  of  court 
allegory'  ;  they  represent  contemporary  characters,  and 
contemporary  politics  in  a  classic  disguise. 

'  Faerie  Queene,  Books  T.  and  IT.  (Cambridge  University  Pi'ess). 
*  Book  III.     TiltrodiK  lion,  "tc,  -^cc  above. 


176     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Have  we  not  been  inclined  to  forget  too  readily  how 
much  of  the  medigeval  mind  still  remains  in  the  Ehza- 
bethans  ?  Why  should  not  Shakespeare  have  a  share 
of  that  w^hich  is  so  prominent  both   in  Spenser  and  in 

Yet,  again,  pointing  in  the  direction  I  have  indicated, 
is  the  example  of  Plutarch,  who  was  almost  a  lay  Bible 
to  the  Ehzabethans. 

He  would  direct  Shakespeare's  attention  not  to  the 
study  of  imaginary  characters,  constructed  on  a  psy- 
chological basis,  but  to  the  study  of  real  characters  of 
actual  statesmen,  with  all  their  idiosyncrasies  and  peculi- 
arities, and  the  mere  idea  of  parallel  lives  grouped  in  pairs 
w^ould  suggest  a  grouping  of  such  characters  as  the  elder 
and  the  younger  Bothwell,  of  Rizzio  and  Polonius,  and 
also  help  towards  the  main  conception — the  parallel 
of  Amleth  and  James  I. 

It  would  be,  I  think,  unfair  to  say  that  Hamlet  is  the 
portrait  of  anyone  ;  he  is  more  subtle,  more  interesting, 
more  many-sided  than  any  human  being  c\'er  has  been 
or  could  be.  Shakespeare  has  taken  from  the  story  of 
James  I.  all  that  was  most  tragic  and  n:iost  pathetic,  and 
from  his  character  all  that  was  most  enigmatic,  most 
attractive,  and  most  interesting.  He  has  taken  from 
the  story  of  James  the  Orestes-like  central  theme  :  the 
theme  of  the  man  whose  father  has  been  murdered,  and 
whose  mother  has  married  the  murderer.  Shakespeare 
has  also  taken  from  James  the  central  traits  of  Hamlet's 
character ;  the  hatred  of  bloodshed,  the  irresolution, 
the  philosophic  mind,  the  fear  of  action,  the  hesitation 
to  punish  which  is  half  weakness  and  half  generosity. 


Conclusion  177 

Only  in  Sliakespf^are  the  interest  is  concentrated  as 
it  is  not  in  the  history.  In  the  history  it  was  the  elder 
Bothwell  who  murdered  James's  father  and  the  younger 
Bothwell  who  held  James  in  a  kind  of  duresse  vile,  and 
threatened  his  life.  By  the  simple  expedient  of  com- 
bining in  one  the  parts  of  the  two  Bothwells,  Shakespeare 
gains  dramatic  unity  and  an  enormous  concentration  of 
interest.  The  tragic  motive  of  the  father's  murder  is 
now  brought  into  the  closest  possible  relation  with  the 
tragic  motive  of  the  son's  hesitancy  and  irresolution, 
and  the  two  together  make  a  drama  of  the  most  powerful 
and  moving  kind.  What  the  story  gains  is  what  the 
stage  so  emphatically  demands :  compression  and 
unity. 

But  this  is  not  enough  ! 

The  tale  of  James  I.  is  not  finished  and  not  complete ; 
nothing  is  roimded  off.  But  the  tragedy  can  be  com- 
pleted by  tmiting  with  it  the  tragedy  of  Essex,  which, 
as  we  have  said,  is  already  one  theme  with  it  in  the 
minds  of  the  audience.  By  uniting  the  tragedy  of  Essex, 
Shakespeare  gains  a  whole  group  more  of  most  dramatic 
and  interesting  themes  :  the  longing  for  seclusion  and 
study,  the  desire  to  retire  from  Court,  yet  remaining 
obediently  at  the  express  wish  and  desire  of  the  Queen, 
even  the  suit  of  "  inky  blackness "  is  reminiscent  of 
the  mourning  of  Essex  as  the  populace  had  last  seen 
him  at  his  Irinl  and  execution.  The  feeling  of  profound 
melancholy,  the  longing  fur  donth,  resembles  that  of 
Essex  in  his  later  years,  so  doi^s  the  li-  Uy  with  Laertes, 
the  sense  of  falnlily  ;i;id  doom,  it  is  in  the  teirible 
deatli    vliich    befell    T -:,ox    ihu     vo   have    iVie    clue   to 


178     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

Hamlet's  shrinking  from  disfigurement  and  defilement 
after  death. 

It  is  from  this  source  that  we  get  the  generosity  and 
kindness  of  Hamlet's  relation  to  the  players,  his  tampering 
with  the  play  and  the  ill  influence  this  has  on  his  own 
fate.  It  is  because  of  this  that  we  have  the  lack  of  am- 
bition and  the  d;^ing  voice  given  to  Fortinbras ;  these 
resemblances  are  pointed  by  giving  us  in  the  death- 
scene  a  quotation  from  the  dying  words  of  Essex.  It 
is  from  this  source,  doubtless,  that  we  have  the  element 
of  the  courtier  and  the  soldier,  the  winning  charm  of 
personality  which  we  are  told  have  been  prominent  in 
Hamlet,  for  the  last  thing  Fortinbras  says  of  him  is  that 
he  must  have  "  the  soldier's  music  and  the  rites  of  war." 

If  Hamlet  were  only  the  philosophic  prince  why  this 
funeral,  and  why  the  body  prominent  on  a  stage  to  be 
seen  of  all  the  people  ? 

But  the  drama  is  still  incomplete  !  There  is  no  love- 
story  to  add  pathos.  Now,  here  again,  Shakespeare 
takes  a  motive  which  he  may  well  have  found  in  the 
drama  of  Essex,  the  motive  of  the  innocent  and  loving 
woman  cruelly  used  as  a  decoy,  the  motive  of  the  stolen 
love-letters,  stolen  to  injure  the  lover,  but  yet  found  to 
be  love-letters,  and  nothing  more,  the  motive  of  the 
bitter  grief  and  wretchedness  of  the  unhappy  woman. 

Possibly  there  is  something  added  from  the  tale  of 
Southampton  which  is  so  intimately  bound  up  with  that 
of  Essex. 

Ophelia  sings  a  lament  for  "  bonny  sweet  Robin," 
and  this  is  the  precise  title  Essex  received  from  his  mother 
and  others. 


Conclusion  179 

The  same  method  is  employed  with  the  other  characters 
in  the  pla}'.  Burleigh  was  only  recently  dead.  He  had 
been  the  great  opponent  of  Essex,  he  had  plotted  or  was 
believed  to  have  plotted  against  him,  he  had  once 
refused  the  marriage  of  Essex  and  his  daughter ;  Essex 
had  certainly  made  Burleigh  his  butt  often  and 
repeatedly,  and  had  taimted  him  recklessly  and  to  the 
amusement  of  the  whole  Court ;  Burleigh,  moreover, 
was  supposed  to  have  been  the  secret  enemy  of  James, 
and  was  accused  of  tampering  with  the  succession  in 
favour  of  Spain.  Burleigh,  then,  is  the  main  original 
of  Polonius,  but  he  died  peaceably  in  his  bed,  and  such 
an  ending  is  not  really  dramatic.  Shakespeare  gives 
us,  therefore,  the  dramatic  and  dreadful  death  of  Rizzio, 
and  points  the  resemblance  once  again,  as  in  the  ceise 
of  Essex,  by  an  almost  exact  quotation. 

Claudius  is  the  two  Bothwells ;  he  is  most  closely 
drawn  from  the  elder,  and  apparently,  from  Buchanan's 
picture  of  him,  he  has  the  drunkenness,  lechery,  adultery* 
incest,  violence,  meanness,  cowardice,  and  personal 
hideousness  which  Buchanan  declares  to  have  characterised 
Bothwell. 

Notv\dthstanding  these  facts,  he  exercised  a  curious 
and  unaccountable  fascination  upon  a  queen  who  was 
already  a  wedded  wife ;  neither  Shakespeare  nor 
Buchanan  explain  how,  if  he  really  was  as  they  describe 
him,  he  contrived  to  fascinate  the  queen.  Every  word 
of  Hamlet's  terrific  indictment  of  him  is  probably  to 
be  taken  as  true. 

One  may  further  ask :  "  Has  Hamlet  a  political 
motive  ?  "     It  is,  of  course,  quite  unnecessary  to  assume 


i8o     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

this  ;  the  dramatic  purpose,  the  mere  desire  to  hold  up, 
as  Hamlet  puts  it,  "  the  mirror  to  nature,"  "  to  show 
virtue  her  o^^^l  feature,  scorn  her  own  image,  and  the  very 
age  and  bod}'  of  the  time  his  form  and  pressure,"  this 
in  itself  is  motive  more  than  sufficient. 

Nevertheless,  it  does  seem  possible  that  Hamlet  may 
have,  in  addition  to  its  purely  artistic  motive,  a  pohtical 
motive  also  :  that  motive  being  simply  the  endeavour 
to  excite  as  much  sympathy  as  possible  for  the  Essex 
conspirators,  and  for  the  Scottish  succession,  since  it 
really  was  the  accession  of  James  which  set  Southampton 
free  from  the  Tower,  and  restored  Shakespeare's  company 
once  more  to  the  favour  of  a  monarch  ;  also  it  is  more 
than  probable  that  Shakespeare  thought  the  Scottish 
succession  would  deliver  the  whole  country  from  sub- 
servience to  Spain. 

In  so  far  as  Hamlet  is  James  I.,  it  seems  to  me  that 
Shakespeare  means  to  excite  in  us  the  desire  to  withdraw 
Hamlet  from  the  Denmark  which  cannot  appreciate 
him,  and  to  give  him  a  wider  and  a  finer  sphere.  We 
know  that  James  himself  welcomed  with  all  his  heart 
his  release  from  Scotland  with  its  many  restrictions, 
its  many  perils,  and  its  necessity  for  endless  subter- 
fuges, and  welcomed  the  greater  freedom  of  the  English 
throne. 

In  so  far  as  Hamlet  is  Essex,  the  political  motive  is 
to  stress  his  own  unwillingness  for  the  life  of  courts  and 
of  ambition,  his  noble  unsuspiciousness  and  the  generous, 
but  misplaced  confidence  which  led  him  to  his  doom ; 
his  instability  of  character  is  shown,  his  rashness,  his 
passionateness,  but  through  it  all  his  nobility  and  the 


Conclusion  i8i 

pathos  of  his  fate.  Hamlet  in  death  is  singularly  anxious 
as  Essex  was  anxious  that  his  memory  shall  be  cleared, 
and  the  circumstances  are  admitted  to  be  strange  and 
doubtful. 

Now,  if  the  method  of  construction  be  the  one  ex- 
plained above,  we  can  hardly  expect  to  find  a  psychologic 
unity  in  Hamlet,  and  I  submit  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
we  do  not. 

Take,  for  instance,  Hudson's  argument : 

"  In  plain  terms,  Hamlet  is  mad,  deranged,  not  indeed  in 
all  his  faculties  nor  perhaps  in  any  of  them  continuously  ; 
that  is,  the  derangemtut  is  partial  and  occasional  ;  paroxysms 
of  wildness  and  fury  alternating  with  intervals  of  serenity 
and  composure. 

"Now  the  reaUty  of  his  madness  is  what  the  literary  critics 
have  been  strangely  and  unwisely  reluctant  to  admit  ;  partly 
because  they  thought  it  discreditable  to  the  hero's  intellect, 
and  partly  t>ecause  they  did  not  understand  the  exceeding 
versatility  and  multiformity  of  that  disease. 

"  And  one  natural  effect  of  the  disease  as  we  see  it  in  him 
is,  that  the  several  parts  of  his  behaviour  have  no  apparent 
kindred  or  fellowship  with  each  other  ;  it  makes  him  full  of 
abrupt  changes  and  contradictions  ;  his  action  when  the 
paroxysm  is  upon  him  being  palpably  inconsistent  with  his 
action  when  properly  himself.  Hence,  some  have  held  him 
to  be  many  varieties  of  character  in  one,  so  that  different 
minds  take  very  different  impressions  of  him,  and  even  the 
same  mind  at  dilTcrent  times.  And  as  the  critics  have 
supposed  that  amid  all  his  changes  there  must  be  a  constant 
principle,  and  as  they  could  not  discover  that  principle,  they 
have  therefore  referred  it  to  some  unknown  depth  in  his 
being,  whereas  in  madness  the  constant  principle  is  either 
wholly  paralysed  or  else  more  or  less  subject  to  fits  of  paralysis  ; 
which  latter  is  the  case  with  Hamlet.  Accordingly  insane 
people  are  commonly  said  to  be  not  themselves  but  beside 
themselves." 


1 82     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

A  reference  to  a  Variorum  Edition  will  show  that  all  the 
alienists  take  the  same  point  of  view,  and  consider  Hamlet 
mad  because  he  shows  a  "  disharmonic  psychology." 

Now,  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  see  how  so  many 
eminent  critics  could  have  taken  such  different  views  of 
Hamlet's  character  had  it  really  been  a  psychological 
unity, 

I  do  not  think  the  case  could  be  better  summed  up  than 
in  Hudson's  words  : — 

"The  several  parts  of  his  behaviour  have  no  apparent 
kindred  or  fellowship  with  each  other.  .  .  .  Hence  some  have 
held  him  to  be  many  varieties  of  character  in  one." 

Now,  this  is  precisely  the  effect  that  would  be  produced 
in  a  mythological  figure  if  Shakespeare  were  drawing 
from  more  than  one  character  at  the  same  time,  and  if 
these  characters  were  such  as  not  to  amalgamate  com- 
pletely into  a  unity.  The  same  "  disharmonic  psycho- 
logy," has  been  found  by  many  critics  in  Lear  and  Macbeth, 
and  by  some  in  Othello. 

The  final  conclusion  I  arrive  at  is  that  it  is  not 
advisable  to  think  our  study  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
complete  without  careful  reference  to  the  history  of  his 
own  time. 


APPENDIX  A 

James  prided  himself  on  being  the  destined  restorer 
of  the  Arthurian  empire.  He  offended  both  his  Parha- 
ments  by  styUng  himself,  wdthout  the  consent  of  either. 
King  of  Great  Britain,  and  he  desired,  as  Selden  puts  it, 
to  get  rid  of  the  very  names  of  strangers  {i.e.  Scotland 
and  England).  Masson  says  in  his  edition  of  the  Register 
oj  the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland :  "  Nothing  is  more 
creditable  to  King  James  than  the  strength  of  his  passion 
for  such  a  union  of  the  two  kingdoms  and  peoples  as 
might  fitly  follow  the  union  of  the  two  crowns.  The 
intensity  of  his  conception  of  the  desirable  union  is  not 
more  remarkable  than  its  thorough-going  generality.  .  .  . 

"  What  had  hitherto  been  the  '  Borders '  or  '  Marches ' 
between  the  two  kingdoms  were  they  not  now  simply  the 
'  Middle  Shires '  of  one  and  the  same  dominion,  and 
ought  they  not  to  be  re-christened  by  that  name  ?  Nay, 
why  should  the  distinctive  names  of  Scotland  and  England 
themselves  be  perpetuated  more  than  reference  to  the 
past  might  make  inevitable  ?  Why  should  they  not  be 
known  henceforth  simply  as  North  Britain  and  South 
Britain,  integral  parts  of  the  same  Great  Britain  ?  .  .  . 
By  his  own  royal  authority  he  attempted  to  abohsh  the 
names  England  and  Scotland  in  all  general  documents." 

James  beheved  that  the  Gunpowder  Plot  was  due  largely 
to  discontented  subjects  who  disliked  the  union  of  the 

183 


184    Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

two  kingdoms  and  the  restoration  of  the  Arthurian 
empire. 

We  may  also  compare  the  Venetian  State  Papers 
(April  17th,  1603) : 

"  He  will  stay  a  few  days  in  Berwick  in  order  to  arrange 
the  form  of  the  union  of  the  two  crowns.  It  is  said  that 
he  is  disposed  to  abandon  the  titles  of  England  and 
Scotland  and  to  call  himself  King  of  Great  Britain,  and 
like  that  famous  and  ancient  King  Arthur  to  embrace 
under  one  name  the  whole  circuit  of  one  thousand  seven 
hundred  miles,  which  includes  the  United  Kingdom  now 
possessed  by  his  Majesty,  in  that  one  island." 


APPENDIX  B 

The  following  is  interesting  as  a  commentary  upon 
The  Merchant  of  Venice. 

It  is  an  extract  from  the  Burleigh  papers,  a  portion  of 
what  appears  to  be  an  actual  proclamation  entitled : 
"  An  Account  of  Dr  Lopez'  Treason,  1593-4." 

"  Doctor  Roger  Lopez,  a  Portugall  borne  ...  he  did 
use  always  the  means  of  certain  choice  persons  picked 
out  by  himself,  in  whom  he  reposed  special  trust,  whereof 
a  Portugall  called  Manuel  Andrada  was  one,  a  man  some- 
time attending  on  the  King  Don  Antonio,  both  as  their 
countrymen  say,  of  one  tribe  and  kindred.  This  Andrada, 
by  letters  intercepted,  was  discovered  to  have  practised 
the  death  of  the  said  Don  Antonio." 

[Andrada  travels  a  great  deal,  to  Spain  and  elsewhere.] 

"  He    (Lopez)    most   wickcilly   did   undertake   a   most 


Appendix  B  185 

heinous  purpose  and  resolution  to  take  away  the  hfe  of 
her  most  gracious  Majesty  by  poison  that  had  honoured 
him,  a  base  fellow  otherwise,  with  princely  favour,  rewards 
and  good  opinion. 

"...  The  precious  life  of  our  sovereign  sacred  Princess, 
upon  whose  life  so  many  lives  depend,  should  have  been 
sold.  Her  life,  I  say,  that  giveth  hfe  to  many,  loath  to 
take  away  the  life  of  any,  though  by  Law  convicted  ; 
a  sweet  Lad3^  wonderfully  inchning  to  Mercy,  most  loving 
to  all  Strangers  ;  I  may  truly  say,  '  Decus  et  deliciae 
mundi '  the  Jewel  of  the  World.  .  .  .  This  Stranger, 
made  a  denizen  in  the  land,  her  sworn  servant,  would 
betray  her  beloved  and  dear  life.  .  .  .  For  the  King  of 
Spain,  they  say,  so  long  as  her  Majesty  liveth,  distrusteth 
in  the  success  of  his  intended  purposes.  .  .  . 

"  Now  like  wary  Merchants  (for  their  letters  were  written 
in  style  of  Merchants),  that  these  letters  might  be  conveyed 
with  more  safety  they  communicated." 

The  document  goes  on  to  state  how  EUzabeth  was 
referred  to  under  the  disguise  of  the  Pearl :  "  Indeed  this 
Pearl  they  mean  though  brought  forth  in  a  northern 
climate,  yet  far  surmounting  all  the  Oriental  Pearies  and 
Jewells,  which  the  East  or  any  other  parts  of  the  world 
ever  had  or  hath." 

Now  here  we  surely  have  remarkable  parallels  to 
Shakespeare's  play ;  there  is  first  the  disguise  of  the 
conspirators  as  merchants  which  suggests  at  once  Shake- 
speare's title  and  general  scheme.  Then  we  have  the 
praise  of  Elizabeth  as  the  jewel  of  the  world,  far  surpassing 
all  others,  as  Bassanio  praises  Poitia  (I.  i.),  and  we  have 


i86     Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 

the  enthusiastic  praise  of  her  mercy  ;  we  have  the  plot 
of  the  alien  Jew  ;  we  have  the  fact  that  the  Jew  employs 
to  travel  for  him  one  of  his  own  tribe  exactly  as  Shylock 
employs  Tubal. 

Fmiher  close  parallels — as,  for  example,  that  Don 
Antonio  becomes  a  bankrupt,  that  he  has  to  borrow  money 
from  the  Jew  Lopez  even  to  pay  for  his  clothes,  that  his 
vessels  are  lost,  one  by  one  or  in  groups,  by  fire,  ship- 
wreck, etc.,  in  what  seems  an  unprecedented  run  of  ill- 
luck — can  be  found  in  the  State  Papers,  1593-4. 

If  the  above  proclamation  were  actually  placarded  on 
the  walls  of  London  (as  it  probably  was)  when  Shake- 
speare's play  was  performed,  the  main  significance  of  the 
drama  would  have  been  immediately  apparent  to  all. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  E.  A.,  Bacon  and  Essex, 

140 
mleth  Saga,   6,    30-1,   49,   88, 

103-5,  108-10,  130 
Antonio,  Don,  11-14  ;  Appendix 

B 
Arthurian  empire,  James  I.  and, 

3-6  ;    Appendix  A . 

Bacon,  Antony,  139 
Banquo,  ancestor  of  Stuarts,  3 
Bassanio  and  Essex,  14 
Bothwell,  the  elder,  7-10,  52-9, 

65-71.  90-1,  173-4 

—  the  younger,  7,  83-7,  90-1, 

106-7 
Bradley,  A.  C,  72-6,  87,  92 
Burton,  character  of   James  I., 

93-7 

—  Damley  murder,  102 

—  Voyage  of  James  I.,  107 

Carberry  Hill,  71 
Catholic  Earls,  107 
Cecil,  Robert,  148-50 

—  Thomas,  11 5-8 

—  William  (Burleigh),  113-^28 
Chamberlain,  John,  letters  of,  143 

Darnley,    murder    of,     50-63, 

1 12-3 
Denmark  a^  Scotland,  6-10 
Drayton  on  the  Stuarts,  4 

Erskine,  of  Mar'and  Horatio,  75 
Essex  and  Lopez,  12 

—  and  Bassanio,  14 

—  and  Richard  II.,  36-7 

—  in  historical  plays,  40 

—  and  the  Cecils,  45,  121-5,  127 
- —  Conspiracy,  33-8,  89 

--  Countess  of,  158-60 


Falconbridge,  167-8 
Falstaff,  15-16,  169-70 
Fortinbras,  161-4 
Francesco,  10 

GUILDENSTERN,   lO 

Haywarde  on  Henry  IV.,  33-5, 

145 
Henry    IV.,     Part    I.,     168-9; 

Part  II.,  14-16,  169 
Hudson,  character   of    Hamlet, 

181 
Hume,  Martin,  on  Cecils,  116-9 

—  on  Scotland,  39 

James  I.,  character  of,  39-44 

Kyd,  earlier  Hamlet  by,  48,  66, 
88 

Laertes  and  Cecil,  116-9 

—  and  Raleigh,  148-9 
Lear,  identity  of,  17-9 

—  Plot  of,  29 

Lingard,  representation  of 
Damley  murder,  103 

Lopez,  Roderigo,  11-14;  Ap- 
pendix B 

Macbeth,    selection    of    as    a 

hero,  3-5 
Measure  for  Measure  and  James 

I.,  99 
Merchant     of     Venice,     11-14; 

Appendix  B 
Merlin  prophecies,  3-6 
Mythology,  26-9,  174-6 

Ophelia,  124,  129-38 ;  grave 
scene,  158-9  ;  love  of 
Hamlet  for,  160-1 

187 


i88    Hamlet  and  the  Scottish  Succession 


Osric,  70 

Othello,  difi&culties  of,  19-21 

Players  political  connections 
of,  32-8,  146-8,  167-71,  178 

Plutarch,  Lives,  176 

Polonius,  96 

Portia  and  Elizabeth,  13-14  ; 
Appendix  B 

Protestantism  of  Hamlet,  8,  64, 

74-5 
Psychology  of  Shakespeare,  23-5 

174 
—  of  Pope,  23 


Psychology  of  Ben  Jonson,  23 

Raleigh,  149-50.  155-8 
Richard  II.,  145,  167,  170 
Rizzio,  murder  of,  9,  67-8,  110-2, 

128 
Rosencrantz,  70 

Southampton,  12 
—  and  Essex  Conspiracy,  131-8 
Spenser  and  Shakespeare,  174-5 
Stuarts,  Genealogy  of,  4-5 

Weldon,  Antony,  94-7 


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